Still, his mother was leaving. Might be the last time he’d see her, given he wasn’t planning on looking her up. “I imagine it took some courage on your part too.”
She smiled again. This time her gray eyes lit up, causing the warmth of recognition to fill him. He remembered that look. It was the look she’d given him when he’d done well in school or said something she thought was clever. “I’m glad I came and you gave me a chance to have my say. It’s more than I deserve. It means a lot to me.”
And then she was out the door. Chance watched her walk down the carpet, head down, a slight limp to her gait, until the elevator came and swallowed her up. She hadn’t looked back. And he hadn’t expected her to. Not really.
Chapter 20
Libby followed Chance’s progress as he walked across the gleaming lobby floor, filled with just a few people checking in, and toward the bar where she sat, waiting. She couldn’t tell from a distance whether he was mad or not. Shifting back around, she took a gulp of her beer.
When he texted her to come up and that the coast was clear, as he put it, she’d texted back and asked him to meet her at the bar. Silly, but her father’s words about Chance’s temper had drummed through her mind. She’d hoped that maybe Deidre would have stayed. They would have dinner together. And everyone would live happily ever after.
Okay, life wasn’t a fairy tale. She got that. But she was almost afraid to find out what had happened. They hadn’t been up there all that long.
If he couldn’t at least try to see things from his mother’s perspective, what chance did she have? He’d never forgive either of them. Despite her helping him, being there for him, declaring she loved him, he only heard what he wanted to hear. When she’d challenged him about the rodeo, he only heard disrespect instead of caring. When she talked about her father, it was an either/or proposition. When they talked about the future, it was always separate futures—his rodeo, her job.
If there was any hope for them, she knew he’d have to forgive her for walking out and trust her enough to work things through. And then, maybe, she could forgive herself.
Unfortunately, Chance painted everything in black and white, and to her mind, the world was painted in shades of gray. Being there for her father didn’t mean she couldn’t be there for him. His being in the rodeo didn’t mean they couldn’t still have a life together. Many couples, most with children, made it work.
Having heard Deidre’s story, it was clear the woman had sacrificed being his mother so that Chance could find a better life with foster parents. Not that the foster parents had been so great, but Chance had grown up into a responsible, successful, hard-working person. And had been indisputably better off than if Deidre had stayed with her husband.
She twisted to face Chance as he settled on the stool beside her. A few older men sat at the far end, and a couple dined at one of the tables. That was the extent of the crowd other than the bartender, a young, handsome man who could have doubled as a bouncer.
“Coors,” Chance said as the barkeep looked his way.
Libby didn’t speak until the bartender had set the bottle down and turned his attention to the older men.
“Are you angry?” She tightened her grip on her beer and mentally prepared herself for the answer.
“Yes.”
Her stomach dipped like she was on a roller coaster ride. There would be no happily ever after.
“But I’m not sorry,” he said, surprising her. “Much as I didn’t want to see her, don’t want to see her, I think it gave her some peace.”
“But not you?”
“Not me.” He took a swig from the bottle and set it back on the bar with a clang. “Life is messy. It doesn’t tie up in a neat bow.” He hung his head and focused on the wood bar as if there was something written there. “I didn’t know what had happened to her. I thought my father had killed her and no one wanted to tell me, because I just couldn’t believe that the mother who had cared about me, at least when she was sober, could leave me behind. And then I learned she had done just that.”
He swung around to face her. Pain creased the fine lines around his eyes.
“You know we were dirt poor. My father allowed me only two glasses of milk a day, took two of the three pork chops on a plate for himself. My mother went without milk, without meat, so I could have a growing boy’s share. Took me until I was about eight to realize what she was doing. After that, I’d complain a lot of nights I had a stomachache so she’d have a decent supper. I had the school lunch program to feed me. She didn’t.”
Libby’s heart clenched. She’d never had to worry about having something to eat. The Brennan family pantry was always well stocked, overflowing in fact. But she understood a mother’s love and the loss of it.
“She may have made a choice you feel was wrong, Chance. But the choice she made was because she loved you. Not because she didn’t.”