Dante exhaled and nodded. “Thanks. I do my best.”
“I can tell that too. It shows in his behavior.” She set a hand on his arm, and the feel of her touch and warmth in her earnest gaze woke a longing in him he didn’t understand. “I just want to tell you, well done. You are an amazing father.”
Her unexpected praise knocked him off his axis and before he could right himself, she had released him and was already disappearing into the kennel building.
Still a little unsteady, he stood a moment and stared after her.
“You okay?” Holden asked, sidling up to him from the other side of the fence, Braddock at his side.
He scrubbed a hand over his face before meeting his buddy’s gaze. “I’m not sure. That woman…she makes me…I don’t know.”
“Feel,” Holden said, a knowing look in his eyes. “She makes youfeelagain.”
Again? More like for the first time.
He blew out a breath and closed his eyes. “Yeah.”
“And you like it.”
“Yeah.” He opened his eyes. “But I shouldn’t, right? I mean, Sheri has only been dead for two years. This is too soon, right?”
“Only you can answer that.”
He blew out another breath. “I know.”
“And forgive me for saying this, but I don’t think you’re just suffering from grief,” Holden said. “I think half of it is guilt.”
He snapped his head back and met Holden’s intense gaze. No sense in denying it. His buddy always was too damn astute. “Is it that obvious?”
Holden shook his head. “No, but I know you. In Delta, we were tight. Brothers. Had to know each other inside and out in order to trust and have each other’s six. So, I always knew you never intended to marry Sheri, and that she didn’t want an attachment either. But you both did what you thought was right—for Noah—not so much for each other.”
“Yeah,” he admitted out loud for the first time. “But I did love her, you know. Just not how she deserved.”
God, he felt like an ass for saying that, but he also felt a thousand pounds lighter for getting it off his chest.
“I know,” Holden said quietly. “And I’m pretty sure, deep down, you know she carried a similar guilt.”
He nodded, allowing the truth of those words to wash through him.
“So, it’s all right to move on from all that. Give yourself permission,” his buddy urged quietly. “You don’t need to carry it around anymore. It’s not doing you any good.”
Deep down, Dante knew his friend was right. Everything Holden just said were the same things he’d been telling himself a few months now. But then Ida had passed away and he put his issues aside and concentrated on helping his son through the grieving process, navigated the sale of the property, and moving to Harland.
Only now was he able to dig out from under all of that and revisit his issues.
“It’s okay to feel again,” Holden said.
Dante smirked. He’d certainly been feeling a lot lately. The image of Amanda’s beautiful face, mischief lighting her gorgeous, green-gray eyes, flashed through his mind.
“You were definitely feeling amused yesterday.” Holden grinned. “I noticed you laughing while I was playing volleyball. It was great to see. I’m betting you haven’t laughed like that since our Delta days.”
He chuckled. “True.”
“What in the world was Amanda saying to you?”
“She was telling us about the last time she’d played horseshoes,” he replied, then went on to fill his buddy in on her crazy true tale. By the time he finished, they were both laughing.
“She certainly has a way with words,” Holden stated when he sobered.
