The Complete Novels of the Lear Sisters Trilogy (Lear Family Trilogy #1-3)

“I don’t find anything about him—he’s not even worth my consideration. Evan is a much better choice for her—”

“She didn’t choose Evan!” Bonnie cried to the ceiling. “Why can’t you get that through your head? She loves Jake! God, Aaron, when are you going to learn? She did what you told her, she went her own way, and you still manage to find fault. You can’t let go of their lives, why should you expect them to do for themselves? To live for themselves?”

Aaron shook his head, sighed heavily. “Bon-bon, he doesn’t have the means—”

“What means? Money? Is that the yardstick by which you measure everything? Well, you have money, Aaron, and it hasn’t made you a better person.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“It means,” she said, swiping angrily at the tears on her cheeks, “that you were that young man once. You didn’t have a dime to your name when you asked me to go to Dallas with you. My father despised you for it, remember? But you promised me—” A sob choked her; she looked helplessly at the ceiling. “You promised me what you didn’t have in money you would make up in love, tenfold. You promised.”

Aaron sank helplessly onto the massive four-poster bed, staring at Bonnie, rudely reminded of a vow he hadn’t thought of in years. But oh God, but he remembered it now, just as clearly as if he had made it yesterday. The two of them, lying on a quilt in the backyard of that little house, looking up at the stars. You see those stars, Bon-bon? I love you all the way to those stars and back. Look up there and see how high we can dream. . . . “I gave you everything,” he said, knowing the moment the words escaped his mouth how empty they were.

Bonnie looked at him with an expression so hurtful that he inwardly cringed.

She pulled a bag out of the closet, stuffed several things into it, and as Aaron watched, picked it up and walked to the door.

“Don’t go, Bonnie, please! I need you,” he said helplessly.

Bonnie paused, her hand on the doorknob. “I know, Aaron,” she said. “And the sad thing is, I need you, too. I always have. But you haven’t changed and . . . and I tried, I really did. But I just can’t do this.”

And she walked out the door, leaving him on the edge of the bed, another wave of nausea filling his throat, mixing with the acrid taste of his tears.





Chapter Twenty-eight





The drive from Comfort to Houston was interminably long and silent. From the back seat of Robin’s Mercedes, Cole attempted to talk about the weekend, particularly the horses and Rebecca, but didn’t get much response from the front seat where Robin and Jake rode in frosty silence. He finally gave up and popped his Walkman on his head.

The frostiness stemmed from an argument Jake and Robin had over leaving in the first place. Robin had expected Jake to be outraged at her father with her, but instead he surprised her by urging her to stay, to work things out with her dad. “He’s a sick man. He’s got a lot on his mind.”

“He’s sick all right,” she’d muttered. She wanted to leave right away, to go home to her empty house and her empty life and just sleep because she was so damn exhausted from a lifetime of trying to please her father.

“He just wants what is best for you, baby—you can’t fault him for that,” Jake continued as Robin angrily stuffed her bag.

“He doesn’t know what is best for me!” she snapped. “He doesn’t know me at all! I’m just another fixture to him, like a car or a boat—”

She broke off, tears welling in her eyes again. Jake came up behind her, slipped his hand around her stomach and pulled her back into his chest. “He’s right, you know. Not about my being after your money, I don’t mean that. But he’s right that I can’t provide for you in the same way he has. At least not yet, and maybe never. He knows that, and you’re his daughter. He wants the very best for you. I would, too, if I were in his shoes.”

“God, Jake,” she said, wrenching free of his arm, “you can’t seem to get it through your head that I don’t need anyone to provide for me!”

“Oh, really? So you are willing to give up all this?” Jake asked, sweeping his arm to the house around him. “You’ve lived in the lap of luxury for a very long time. Do you think you can just turn your back on it? Because that is what you are about to do.”

“Stop,” she said, choking on a sob. “Stop defending him. Stop pretending that money is so important.”

“Stop pretending that it’s not,” he quietly countered.

Robin sniffed, wiped her nose with a used tissue, then methodically finished packing her bag while Jake watched. When she finished, she hoisted it over her shoulder. “Are you coming?” she asked, looking at the door.