I shrugged. Even if we could talk to her, it would be impossible now. We didn’t even know where she’d gone. “She made it perfectly clear she wants nothing more to do with us.”
“Are you two ever going to stop whining and pull your heads out of your asses?” Travis rubbed his hand across his forehead. “I can’t believe I’m the one about to give you two advice.”
“What advice could you possibly give us that would change what’s happened?” It all seemed pretty hopeless to me at this point. Travis was right; we’d pushed her away with our assumptions, but she had been the one to decide to leave.
“You say you left your father because he was controlling and manipulative. You that you would never be like your father no matter what. Well, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You are pushing her to do something she isn’t ready to do. She may never be ready to cut ties with her mom. And while I hate that woman for what she’s put Blake through, you can’t push Grace to do what you want her to do.” He sighed. “Have you asked Grace what she might want to do next? Maybe what she needs help with? Because after witnessing what she had to deal with growing up, I bet no one’s even asked Grace what she wanted out of life.”
“No, we didn’t.” I shut my mouth. Travis had laid a real truth bomb down on us. I was looking out for Grace. I wanted to love her and support all her decisions. I was nothing like my father. He didn’t give me a choice about what I did. He told me what I had to do and forced me to do it. And yet knowing how much I pushed against being told what to do, I had just done the same to Grace. I hadn’t trusted she could make her own decisions and only needed me to be there to support whatever that was.
Shit.
I was being like my father. I didn’t give her a choice. I didn’t give her any other option in how she could move forward. I only wanted her to relieve herself of the controlling parent like I had because it had worked for me. I was finally able to admit that just because it worked for me, it didn’t mean that it was the best solution for Grace. She needed to make her own decisions. Not have me dictate her life. She’d had enough of that. I needed to show her that I believed she was strong enough to stand on her own two feet. That even if she fell, I’d be there to catch her, and stand by her side until she was ready to try again.
I should have been more understanding.
My shoulders dropped, and I stumbled back to my log to sit down. Fuck. I screwed everything up. It was all my fault. I shouldn’t have pushed her. She had said she wasn’t ready, but I hadn’t accepted it.
“And you…” He pointed at Scott who looked taken aback. “You put her on a pedestal and treated her like she was some fragile woman who needed to be taken care of when she’s a grown woman who has been able to handle herself for a long time. She isn’t Hannah. Hannah’s death was an accident. You can’t try to protect Grace from getting hurt. You have to let her fly. Just find her. It doesn’t matter where she’s gone. Go find Grace and tell her how you feel.”
“We get it. We have shit to fix.” Scott held his hands up. “But do you really think she will come back to us?”
He shrugged. “I mean, remember what happened with Blake, and she came back to Gavin and me. Anything is possible when it comes to love.”
“Oh, God. You turned into a sap. Who would have ever thought you would be the first of us to fall in love and settle down?” I shoved Travis back out toward the field. “Go get more firewood.” Scott and I needed to figure the rest out by ourselves.
Scott stared at me. “Ty, do you even think she’ll want us back? I mean after what I said, I’m surprised she didn’t slap me.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, but we have to try. I don’t want to lose the woman I love because we can’t pull our heads out of our asses.”
“So, how are we going to fix this? Even though we both love her, we still can’t change the fact that she will leave once she finds another team.”
“Right. If she finds another team, we offer to go with her. Or at least one of us at a time.” An idea started rolling around in my head. “We’ve been talking about training another hand to be an alternate on the cattle teams, so just in case someone is sick, we don’t lose a person on an outing. What if we trained Matt to join our team, and then you and I can switch on and off for our spot. We each spend a few months at a time with her and then switch out.”
It wasn’t the most ideal situation, but it could work. As long as Thomas and Declan agreed to it. While it sucked that all three of us wouldn’t be together at the same time, it was a temporary solution for now until we figured out a permanent one.
“We could try to find her a team that’s close by so that we could visit back and forth like Caitie does with her fiancé. He lives a few cities away, and she alternates between the ranch and her place. Or we could…” Scott looked ready to throw something at me before I could list my next idea.
“What?”
“Are you serious right now? You listing off ways to fix this isn’t going to actually solve the problem. You’re still trying to control the situation, just letting her choose what is the best option and not letting her think for herself.”
“That’s not at all what I’m doing.” My eyebrows felt like they hit the edge of my unruly hair that was due for a haircut. “I’m giving her ideas on what we could do together to make this work.”
“You need to let her come up with them on her own. Let her think for herself. She doesn’t even know what is going to happen in the next week, let alone that far in the future that your plans suggest. You can’t force her to make a decision like that.”
“You’re right, you’re right.” I sighed, my shoulders falling forward. “I just wanted to help. I guess the best way to help her is to step back and let her decide what she wants.”
“Agreed. We just need to make sure she knows that whatever choice she makes, we will be with her one hundred percent.” Scott nodded.
“But until she finds another team, she still isn’t willing to give her horrible mother up—” I started to suggest.
“No, we will not interfere with her mother. You let her deal with her on her own time. I know you want her to let go, but she needs to do that when she is ready. Not when we tell her she is. Got it?”
My eyes widened. I’d never heard Scott this stern before. But he was right. I was doing it again. “I was only going to say that we could offer for her mother to stay with us until they figured out what was next.”
“And if you give her that idea, I will murder you.” Scott pointed at me from across the fire.
Fair enough. I really didn’t want that woman staying with us, either. Seeping bad thoughts into our woman’s mind. Scott was right. I wasn’t going to say it out loud, but I could still think about it. I wanted that woman as far away from Grace as possible.