“What happened?”
He leaned his head back against the swing and gazed up at the stars, at the same sky he’d gazed up at that night. It felt like yesterday, and it felt like a hundred years ago. “He used to be one of my best men, but he’d changed those last few months. The things we saw over there…” He shook his head. “He’d become reckless, self-destructive. I didn’t realize how bad it was and I kept cutting him slack. I thought that whatever was wrong with him, he would work through it. But that night he disobeyed a direct order. He disclosed our location and put us all in mortal danger.”
“Is that when you were shot?”
“Me and half a dozen other men were injured. Two almost fatally. I’ve always had a volatile temper, but that night, I lost it. It took four men to pull me off him.”
“Everyone has a breaking point,” she told him. “He’d pushed you too far.”
“And I should have taken formal action against him. Instead I flew into a rage. If they hadn’t pulled me off, I wouldn’t have stopped. I would have killed him.”
“But you didn’t.”
“But I would have, and the worst part, the thing that makes me sick to my stomach, is when I went back a few weeks ago they threw a damned party for me. This man who I nearly beat to death came up to me and apologized. Said he was sorry he let me down.”
“He respects you,” she said.
“I gave him no reason to.”
Nita stroked his arm, and the simple gesture took away some of the pain. Soothed him in a way he’d never felt soothed before. He was so tired of feeling angry. So sick of the guilt. But it wouldn’t go away. It was as if it had become an extension of his personality. A part of his soul.
“This is why you left the army, isn’t it?”
“I had to. What if I lose it like that again? Next time, someone might not be there to stop me.”
She was quiet for several minutes. He needed her to tell him that it was over, that she would stop pursuing him. He both anticipated and dreaded it.
“Connor,” she finally said, turning to face him. “Were you happy in the army?”
Her question threw him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, did you enjoy it?”
“I was serving my country.”
“Yes, I realize that. But did you like it?”
It was what he was meant to do. What he was expected to do. Whether or not he liked it had never crossed his mind. “It was an honorable career,” he told her.
She blew out a frustrated breath. “Let’s try this again. When you were in the army, did you have fun?”
“It’s not supposed to be fun.”
“Yes, Connor, it is. When I wake up in the morning, I can’t wait to get to work because I love it. Sometimes, when I’m training a horse, it’s scary and it’s frustrating and it’s difficult, and it’s still fun.” She touched his cheek, turned his head so he would look at her. “I’m going to ask you again, did you enjoy being in the army?”
“It’s what was expected of me. What I was good at.”
“What about working in your father’s firm. Is that fun?”
He gave a rueful laugh. “I don’t think you could ever categorize engineering as fun.”
“The people who like to do it can. The people who don’t do it because it’s what is expected of them.”
“Life is not about having fun.”
“Why not? Shouldn’t it be?”
Good question. One he’d never considered—and had no idea how to answer.
She didn’t wait for one. “If you’re not having fun, you’re most likely unhappy, and people who aren’t happy get angry and bitter. And if they don’t do anything to change, they just get angrier and angrier until they snap.”
It took a full minute for his brain to absorb the meaning of her words, the concept was so foreign to him. Could she be right? Could his rage, his anger be the result of a life spent pleasing other people? Had he really been so unhappy?
What was it his brother had said? Connor needed someone who could show him how to have fun. Had he become so closed off, so mired in other people’s expectations and his father’s constant disapproval, that he’d forgotten how to have fun?
Hell, had he ever known? Had he ever been happy?
Nita yawned and stretched, and pulled herself to her feet. “Well, it’s getting late. I think I’ll head back up to bed now.”
“I’ll be up in a bit,” he said. He didn’t feel much like sleeping.
“You know, you’re still welcome to join me.”
Everything in him wanted to accept her offer. But he wasn’t prepared to drag her into this mess that had become his life.
“Maybe another time,” she said, when he didn’t answer. “And think about what I said.”
Thinking about what she’d said seemed to be all he could do as she disappeared into the house. When dawn cast a pink shadow on the horizon he finally got up and went inside, no closer to a solution than he’d been before.
Nita stormed into the family room, feeling as if she were about an inch from her wits’ end and slipping fast. The men in this house were all acting like a bunch of fools and, damn it, it was time she did something about it.
She smacked the newspaper down on the coffee table across from her father’s chair. Startled, he looked up from his game.
“What’s the matter with you?”
She pointed at the paper. “You want to explain to me why there’s no ad in this paper for a housekeeper when you assured me that you were going to take care of it.”
He looked away, but not before she saw the guilt in his eyes. “Musta forgot.”
Forgot my foot. “You haven’t noticed the house is falling apart? Daddy, I am only one woman. I can’t do it all. You, of all people, should know that.”
“I’ll start helpin’ out then,” he grumbled.
She doubted that. All he’d done since the hospital was sit on his duff and mope. Between him and Connor—who had grown even more withdrawn and cranky since their talk the other night—she was beginning to believe both men had developed some sort of weird, male PMS.
And even if her daddy did get off his behind and lend a hand, which at this point didn’t look promising, he was limited as to what he could do in a cast.
It was time she put her foot down.
“That’s not good enough,” she told him. “We have to hire someone.”
“It just…I can’t do that.”
“But we need a housekeeper!”
“It feels wrong to bring a new housekeeper in. This is Jane’s house.”
“Jane’s house? I thought you built this house for Momma?”
If she’d been trying to push a button, she’d apparently hit the right one. He looked crestfallen. And for the first time since Jane left she realized he wasn’t just being stubborn. He was genuinely hurt and lonely and confused.
“I never realized how much I would miss Jane,” he said.
Nita knelt on the floor by his chair. “Then you have to tell