I shook my head. I didn’t blame her. I’d fucked this up all by myself.
“Ryan says you’re in love with her.”
I shuffled my feet in the dirt, scuffing up my ostrich boots. “I am. At least I think I am. I don’t really know what it is to love someone in that way.”
My brother cracked a smile. “You know when you feel it, Tal. If you feel like you’re in love with her, you are.”
“I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Do you think she feels the same way?”
“I have no idea. I know we have what you might call ‘really good physi
cal chemistry.’”
Joe chuckled. “That’s a good thing.”
“I just don’t know if we can be together.”
“You have to be honest with her, for one.”
“I can’t be, Joe. I can’t be honest with someone else when I have a hard time being honest with myself.”
My brother turned and faced me, his eyes serious. “If you don’t get help, Tal, and deal with everything that’s going on inside you, you’re never going to live the life you were born to live.”
“Are you kidding me? The life I was born to live? So far it’s sucked.”
“It doesn’t suck. You’ve had some tough breaks.”
“Tough breaks? You make it sound like I missed the winning shot in a basketball game. What I went through goes a tough break.”
My brother rubbed his temple. “I’m not trying to belittle what you went through. But you’ve never actually told me about it. Ryan and I can only guess.”
I cleared my throat. “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”
“Our imaginations are pretty good. We pretty much know what went on.”
“What you think went on? Multiply that by a hundred. Then you might get to where I was.”
Jonah shook his head. “Damn, I wish so much it had been me instead of you. I should’ve been there.”
I hated when my brother did this. Ryan too. Acted like they wished it had been them rather than me. That was so stupid. They should be damned happy it hadn’t been them. We’d been through all that before. No need for me to rehash it. I stayed silent.
“You could go see that Dr. Carmichael again. She’s supposed to be really good.”
I cleared my throat. “I thought about it. I was just so… I don’t know.”
“Were you scared?”
“No.” I wasn’t scared. Hell, I wasn’t scared of anything.
Jonah removed his Stetson and wiped his brow. “What’d you come out here for, anyway?”
I swallowed. “I was wondering if maybe you could talk to Jade. Convince her to come back to the house.”
“If Marjorie couldn’t convince her, I doubt I could.”
He was probably right.