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“You’re going to talk to her, right?” Dan’s voice rumbled over the engine deck of Carmen’s car.
Sawyer let his arm drop and took a deep breath. “I talked to her.”
“You’ve argued with her, made up with her, but have you talked to her?” Dan straightened and crossed his arms. “About what you want.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Don’t ‘yes, Father’ me. This is important.”
Sawyer sighed and braced himself against the car, letting his head hang. “I told her I didn’t want her to leave. We decided we would try to make it work.”
Dan pinned him with a look that Sawyer was not sure he wanted to dissect too closely. “You need to do more than try, son.”
“What the hell else am I supposed to do?” Sawyer struggled to keep his calm. It took all his strength of will to concentrate on her car. It would be the reason and the means for her to leave him, and here he was, forced to fix it. He was creating his own destruction, and he did not need his dad on his back. With a frustrated sigh, he went back to the engine.
“Tell her you’re in love with her,” Dan pressed. “You let go of this ‘try’ shit, and you do. You do whatever you need to do.”
The wrench Sawyer was turning slipped in his grip. His knuckles smacked and rasped over the greased metal of the motor. “Ow! Shit!” He glared at his father. “Did Mom put you up to this?” he snapped.
“No.” Dan’s eyes fell from his and wandered around the garage.
“Pop . . .” Sawyer growled.
“Yes, fine,” Dan grumbled. “She thought you may take it more seriously coming from me.”
“Oh, yeah, because you are the most romantic person I’ve ever met.” Sawyer’s voice was laden with sarcasm, but he experienced a stab of remorse. Dan and Alice’s love story and the relationship they shared was one of the sweetest he had ever heard and witnessed. He pushed the hair off his face and shook his bleeding hand.
“It’s not like you to be Mom’s lackey,” he said. “You typically have more backbone than that.”
Dan’s brows bunched, but Sawyer could see his attempt to anger his father had not worked. “I’m not doing her bidding. I agree with her.”
“I repeat, none of your guys’ business.”
“You can repeat it until you’re blue in the face. You, and your siblings, will be our business until we are six feet under.”
“Mom wants you guys to be cremated and put in those urns that grow into trees.” Sawyer crossed his arms and matched his father’s scowl.
“What?” Dan looked momentarily taken aback. “Fuck that.”
Sawyer steadied himself against the vehicle. Hot, sticky warmth leaked over the back of his hand. He held it up in front of his father. “If you’re finished with your little intervention, I should go clean this.”
“I’m not finished,” Dan said.
Sawyer closed his eyes, breathing deeply through his nose. “Please, go on then.”
“Carmen should know how you feel so she can properly weigh her options.”
“I will say nothing to her that might guilt her into staying. She never thinks of herself. She knows I care about her, and I want to continue a relationship with her. If she believes I’m in love with her, she might stay rather than hurt me. I won’t use my feelings as a pawn to sway her.”
“You are in love with her.” Dan’s voice was full of conviction.
“Christ, Dad.” Sawyer threw up his hands. A drop of blood splattered against his cheek. “I don’t even know if I am. It’s too soon.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’ve only known her for like a week. That’s not enough time. That can’t be enough time, can it?” The words tasted bitter in his mouth. They were lies. He was in love with Carmen. Madly and against the odds. He wanted nothing more than to cling to her and beg her to stay in his life. They said they would try, but it was not enough. His days should start with her smile for the rest of his life. The sight of her sleepy green eyes, blinking awake from across the pillow, couldn’t ever be only a memory. He couldn’t live with it only being a memory.
Dan was staring at him. “I knew I’d spend the rest of my life with your mother the moment I saw her.”
“She was dating Uncle Cliff the first time you met her.”
“I didn’t say she knew. But I did.”
Sawyer pressed his fingers to his brow and chuckled reluctantly. His parents would share their love story with anyone they thought would listen.
“Dad, I just don’t feel right about it. I want her to make a choice on her own. She’s been denied that too often.”
“Fine. I can see where you’re coming from. But I need to know that you won’t be stupid about this. Don’t disregard your feelings. That girl belongs here with you.” Dan’s lips quirked. “Hell, she belongs with all of us.”
A sudden lump rose in Sawyer’s throat. He turned and propped a hip on the car, pretending to inspect his cut knuckles. “I wish there was more time,” he said at last, and his voice cracked. He turned his face away from his father. “I wish I deserved her.”
Dan’s big hand came down on his shoulder and squeezed. Then without another word, Dan reached down into Carmen’s car engine and seized a grease blackened hose. One jerk of his arm, and it popped loose.
“Oops!” Catching Sawyer’s eye, Dan grinned. “That might take an extra day or two to fix.”
Sawyer released a shocked laugh, quickly dashing a hand under his eyes. Dan paused in the doorway, his back to Sawyer.
“You may not think you have enough to offer that girl, son, but a man who will love her truly and treat her the way she deserves is worth more than anything else.” With that, he left the garage. Sawyer stared after him, forgetting his hand and the car, and everything but the cavernous ache in his chest. More than anything else, he wanted to believe his father was right.