“I failed you the worst, Hope,” he uttered hoarsely. “When you needed me the most, I wasn’t there.”
Her tears fell harder until she could barely see his face, her vision blurred. How could he blame himself for her past? She’d been an adult, made her own decisions. From where she was now, she didn’t regret her past, because it had brought her to Jason and her beloved son. Regardless, the horror she’d suffered in the past had nothing to do with Evan. She’d intentionally covered her tracks, and she hadn’t expected him to save her from anything. She’d wanted to do things on her own.
“I didn’t want you to know, Evan. I didn’t want anyone to know. I was free for the first time in my life, and I loved it at the time. Nothing you could have done would have made me stop, and it’s not your fault. I was an adult and it was my life.” She needed to find a way to get her lug-headed brother to understand that he wasn’t responsible for every bad thing that happened to any of them in their lives. If he could, Evan would bear the blame for every wrong in the Sinclair family, but it couldn’t continue. “It wasn’t your fault,” she repeated, hoping he’d believe it in time if she said it often enough.
“Our father was an asshole, and our mother didn’t give a damn about any of us. Somebody needed to protect all of you,” he said defensively.
“Who was there to protect you? You were just a child, too,” Hope said softly, keeping her hand in Evan’s as he lowered her arm, resting his hand on the leather seat of the car.
“I don’t think I was ever a child,” Evan answered abruptly.
Sometimes Hope wondered if he ever had been just a kid. It seemed like he’d been born in a suit and tie, ready to be an adult. But he hadn’t always been an adult, and nobody had been there for him during his childhood. Now that she understood why Evan was the way he was, she knew that she had to try to fix it. Her heart ached with sadness at the unfairness of the situation, and his insistence on always being the strong protector. He’d always been distant, but she’d felt him pulling away from his family, and he needed them. The truth was, they needed him just as much. The entire Sinclair family needed to finally heal from the wounds of their upbringing. “I think you need to tell Grady, Dante, and Jared.” All of them worried about Evan and the distance he’d put between them. She understood why, to an extent, but it needed to end. He was mistaken in thinking he wasn’t wanted anymore. Not that he’d said that, but Hope could sense it. Every one of them loved him, whether he could accept that affection or not. Yeah, sometimes Evan was a jerk. But looking back, he had been a protector to each one of them at one time or another. Right now, Hope’s heart ached that none of them had realized that Evan had experienced his own unique challenges.
“I don’t know if I can,” Evan shared quietly. “They’re all happy now.”
So they no longer needed or wanted their eldest brother?
Hope’s heart clenched because Evan didn’t feel like he had a purpose anymore, now that they were all grown. He’d tried to be a surrogate father to them all for so long that he didn’t know how to be just a brother. “We still need you, Evan. We love you. You don’t need to be perfect anymore.”
“I’m as close to perfect as any man can be,” Evan grumbled disgruntledly. “It’s impossible to be completely faultless.”
Hope burst out laughing. Tears were still rolling down her face as she realized that some things about her eldest brother would never change, and she really didn’t want him to be someone he wasn’t. He was a product of his upbringing and his own experiences in his life. Evan was a good man, but he needed a woman who would help him laugh at himself occasionally.
Randi would be perfect for him, but the situation was definitely precarious at the moment. After everything she’d learned about Evan today, the last thing she wanted was to see him brokenhearted. Oh, not that he’d admitted that he was anything more than strangely attracted to Randi right now, and that he’d come to like her through their correspondence when he’d thought he was talking to someone else. But Hope could see all of the signs. She had a husband she’d been in love with most of her life. It wasn’t difficult for her to recognize Evan’s attraction as a little more than what he’d described.
“Just shut up and hug me, Evan,” she insisted, smiling through her tears.
He turned away from the steering wheel and held his arms open for her. “Of course, if that’s what you need,” he agreed readily.
I’m not the only one who needs it.
Hope threw herself into his sheltering embrace, knowing he needed a hug just as badly as she did. He held her close and she rested her head on his shoulder, hopeful that someone special like Randi could help heal Evan’s hidden pain. He’d been the rock of their family, the sibling who had always been there for every one of them. As Hope squeezed him tightly, she knew it was beyond his turn to begin healing the wounds of his childhood. She planned on doing everything in her power to make that happen.
“So do you have any suggestions?” Evan asked hesitantly.
Hope knew he was talking about his situation with Randi. As she pulled back from his hug and swiped at her damp face, she told him firmly, “Plenty of them. We need to make another stop on the way back to the Peninsula. We have to get you to loosen up a little. You can drop me off afterward and then run out to Randi’s place with the groceries. I’ll call her so she doesn’t try to make the trip into town. Take my vehicle, and have the plow run in front of you on the way out there. It’s a small, two-lane highway going out to her place. It can get pretty bad.”
Evan gave her a suspicious look, but he didn’t say another word. He shifted the large SUV into gear and asked her where she wanted to go. She gave him directions, and he followed them silently. For once, Hope didn’t feel awkward because of the distance he was trying to create, or his silence, because she understood that Evan was far from indifferent. So much of the Evan they saw on the surface was nothing more than a fa?ade. There was no question he was arrogant, but he was so much more.
“Turn right at the light,” she instructed, wondering how difficult he was going to make her effort to get him some casual clothing.
“When did you get so bossy?” Evan asked gruffly, but he slowed the vehicle to make the turn.
Hope smiled at his comment and answered, “I’ve always been that way. You just never noticed because you were so much bossier.”
He didn’t answer, but she could see the corners of his lips start to turn up.
She leaned back in the heated leather seat contentedly with a grin on her face. Evan was nearly smiling. It might not seem like much to most people, but for her, it meant a hell of a lot.
CHAPTER 6
Randi lost her power around two o’clock in the afternoon, just as she was getting ready to leave for town.