His hands shaking, he poured himself a full glass of whiskey. With his gut a coiled mass and his chest so tight he was choking, he raised his glass to the memory of his father, then tossed back the liquid in one harsh gulp. The whiskey seared his throat going down, burned all the way into his heart, setting fire to the image of his father laughing at him.
His grip on the glass tightened until his knuckles turned as white as the ghost of his father. Then, with all his anger, all his fear, all his grief, he threw it against the brick fireplace.
“Sebastian?”
He spun. Charlie, lips parted, eyes wide, stared at the mess in his office, the remaining whiskey in the bottom of the glass still dripping down the brick. He’d never needed to let her go more than he did in this moment. Right now, when she saw it all, saw him at his worst.
But he couldn’t get the words out. Couldn’t find the strength to tear off the shackles he’d bound her with. Not even when she strode to him through the glass, her steel-toed boots crushing the shards. She was so beautiful, everything he’d ever wanted, everything he could ever want. She owned his heart and soul.
“I’m not running again.” Her words were quiet but firm. Utterly determined. “No matter what.”
“Charlie.” It was the only word he could push out of his burning throat. Her name was both a prayer and a desperate plea not to give up on him, even after he’d given up on himself.
“I have so many things I want to ask you. So many things I want to tell you. But first—” She held out the clipboard of sketches he’d worked on this morning, forcing him to look. “I’m going to tell you what I see when I look at this drawing.” She traced the lines of the sketch with one fingertip. “I see me. The real me.”
He had to say, “You’re far more beautiful than that.” His hands could never bring out her true beauty.
“Maybe I am, but this is my essence,” she insisted. “This is when I’m at my best. When I’m working. You show that with every look you give me, with every kiss, and with this too.” Another step closer, glass crunching beneath her boots. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me what you see, Sebastian,” she whispered. “What you really see, not just what you’re afraid you see.”
He was afraid. Not only of being an artistic failure, but also of somehow diminishing her in the drawing, as his father had accused him of doing so long ago.
“He threw my sketches into the fire.” The words were out before he even realized he’d opened his mouth. Tonight his control had fled, gone after all these years of locking his secrets deep inside, hiding them from the Mavericks, from Bob, even from Susan. “My father found my drawings. When I was twelve. Of him and my mother. He hated the way I’d sketched him. Said I made him look like a weak drunk.” Only Charlie’s hands over his kept Sebastian from falling back into that night in the filthy living room. “All I wanted was to help him, help my mom. But he and his friends tossed my drawings into the fire, and they all burned while they laughed.” Angry, bitter laughter that had echoed inside him with every chink in his walls. So he’d built those barriers higher, thicker, hiding that secret part of himself. Until Charlie. Until he fell so deep, so recklessly in love, that all the walls had shattered like the whiskey glass against the fireplace.
Charlie gently cupped his cheek. “What did your mom do?”
“Passed out,” he said as softly as the feel of her skin against him. “She never saw a thing. Never mentioned it. She was almost like a shadow around the house.”
“That’s why you stopped drawing, isn’t it? Why you’ve been hiding all your sketchbooks ever since. Because your father—” She spat out the word in disgust. “—sent your dreams up in flames.” She wrapped her arms around him, holding so tightly it felt as if she could weld the pieces of his shattered heart back together by the sheer force of her will to heal him. “Yet you still tried to do everything you could for them.”
“I spent my teenage years trying to fix them. I believed that if I poured enough liquor down the drain or got them into rehab or AA, I could change them. I believed I could find something to replace whatever they were missing.” He stared at the whiskey glistening on the bricks. “But maybe there’s a part of me that’s just like my father,” he whispered. “Maybe that’s what all the parties and galas are about. He needed his parties too, craved them as much as he craved his next drink.”
She drew back, gripping his shoulders to force him to meet her gaze. “Don’t you ever say that. You’re nothing like him. And those parties were all about helping me. There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“Then why couldn’t I fix my parents?” He needed to find a reason.
“It was never your job to find their solution for them.” She ran her strong, yet gentle, hands down his arms. “They had to find it for themselves, and they never could. They might never have been capable of it.”
He’d never wanted to admit the painful truth that some people simply didn’t have the strength to change. People like Bob and Susan had just as many trials in their lives, but they’d never given up. But his parents hadn’t even tried.
“They did one thing right, Sebastian. They helped make you who you are. Between them, they raised a man who has the strength, the passion, and the heart of ten men.”
“That was Susan and Bob and the rest of the Mavericks.” He wanted nothing more than to wrap her tightly in his arms, but he had so much to confess before he could do that. “I tried to do the same with your mother. New doctors, new treatments, as if I had the power to change everything for her.”
“I love that you wanted to try. But after we’ve done everything we can, we have to accept things the way they are and make the most of what we have. I love you for your empathy.” As if she’d had a sudden painful thought, she stiffened slightly against him. “I’m so sorry I made it sound like everything was your fault. It isn’t. Not even close. I was wrong for fighting you about contributing to Magnolia Gardens.”
He ran his fingers through her hair. “I understand your need to take care of that yourself. I pushed all the parties and the commissions because it seemed like the only thing I could do for you.”
She rested her hand on his chest, her fingers stroking lightly. “I know. And I was afraid of letting you take over, as if I’d lose my independence.” She shrugged. “I’ve always taken care of my own responsibilities, so it was hard to accept anything from you. But I was wrong. I told you I loved you, but I never turned my whole heart over to you. I was always holding something back, because—” This time she was the one swallowing hard. “It’s the same reason I thought I should drop teaching when my art career started to take off—because it’s the reasonable, streamlined thing to do. I mean, why would anyone keep a lower-paying job when every hour she spends making sculptures can earn so much more? But I’ve realized that’s who I am. Someone who does things that don’t make sense to everyone else, who tosses together those jumbled pieces of life in weird ways no one else could imagine. But it works for me. If I ever tried to change who I am, I’d only be destroying an important part of myself.” She trembled in his arms. “Can all those jumbled-up, junkyard pieces of me be good enough for you?”
“Yes, damn it.” It killed him that she needed to ask. Didn’t she know that she was everything to him, exactly the way she was? “You’re the best person I’ve ever met, the most amazing woman I’ve ever known.” He grabbed the clipboard and this time he made her look at it.
In the sketch, she wore her face shield, her gloves, her smock, her boots. The sparks of her torch flew out all around her, almost like a halo. The lines of the horse she worked on weren’t perfect. They were a work in progress. And he saw something he hadn’t known he’d added until she made him look. The face shield’s reflection showed lines that weren’t there yet, the perfect lines that were still in Charlie’s head, lines that would eventually grace the horse itself. Because Charlie could fix anything.