Dylan's Last Dare

“Oh, wow!” His eyes rounded. “Can I, really?”

Dylan ruffled the boy’s hair. “Yes, you really can.”

A smiling Jeff went to his seat across the table, next to Kelly. The little girl looked like her mother, pretty as a picture. When he winked at her, her face lit up with a smile, and a funny feeling circled Dylan’s heart.

Brenna leaned toward him. “I think you got yourself a couple of new fans here.” She looked him in the eye and whispered, “You’ve still got it, Dylan ‘The Devil’ Gentry.”

Chapter Three

Two hours later, Wyatt walked Brenna and Dylan out to the porch. She noticed he was careful not to hover too close to his brother, letting him move by himself. Although tired, Dylan seemed to want to show off and made easy work of getting down the steps and into the golf cart.

“Thank Maura again for the great meal,” Dylan said.

“Anytime,” Wyatt said. “And if you’ll let me know where your national championship buckle is, I could get it.”

“Impossible. It’s in my trailer and that’s parked in Arizona.”

Wyatt shook his head. “No, it’s here,” he said. “So is Cheyenne Gold.”

Dylan tensed. “You brought my trailer and horse here?”

Wyatt glanced at Brenna, then back at his brother, and nodded. “Yeah. You spent so much time in the hospital, and since you were coming here anyway… I thought you might need your things close by. No sense you paying a fortune to store your trailer and board your horse. Here it’s free.”

Brenna got in the cart, feeling more than the January chill. There was new tension between the brothers.

“We should get back,” she suggested. “You two can hash this out when it’s warmer. Wyatt, thank Maura again.” She pressed her foot on the pedal and they shot off down the path.

Once at the cottage, Dylan got out without her help and went up the single step with ease. Inside, he started toward the bedroom, but Brenna caught up with him.

“Dylan, why don’t you watch television out here? The screen is bigger. We could put a movie in the VCR.”

“I don’t feel like a movie.”

“Then stay and talk?” She should keep out of this situation, but this situation could interfere with her patient’s recovery. “I can fix some coffee.”

“I know what you’re trying to do, Brenna, but it isn’t going to work. I’m mad as hell. So let me be.”

She took hold of his arm and got a fierce look as his silver-blue eyes locked on her.

Somehow she managed to find her voice. “No. Not until you tell me what was so bad that it ruined the end of an enjoyable evening with your family.”

“I didn’t ruin it, my brother did.”

Brenna watched as he started to pace a path to the door then back again. “Tell me what he did that was so terrible.”

“What Wyatt has always done for the past thirty-one years—try to run my life. He’s older than me by five minutes, and believe me, he has let me know it all our lives. He’s always felt he knows what’s best for me. Just like my coming to the ranch. I agreed to stay here, only until I recovered from my injuries. But he still couldn’t leave things alone. It was his idea to get a therapist. I never wanted one. I just wanted to be left alone.

“Now he thinks he had the right to drag my trailer and horse here. Without asking me, I might add. He’s just looking for a way to keep me here permanently.”

Why did Dylan’s words hurt so much? Brenna had known from the beginning that he didn’t want a therapist. Over the past week, he’d gotten past that and had accepted her, but hearing the bitterness in his voice now she wasn’t so sure. Her own anger flared. She’d be damned if she’d stay where she wasn’t wanted.

“You’re right, Dylan,” she agreed. “Your brother had no right to push you into anything you didn’t want. At least one of your problems can be easily solved.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Which one’s that?”

Her chest was tight. “Your therapist. I’ll have my bags packed and be gone in thirty minutes.”

He had blown it big-time.

Dylan knocked on Brenna’s bedroom door, but she didn’t answer. He knocked again. “Brenna, can we talk?”

No answer.

“Please, Bren. You misunderstood. Open the door and let me explain.”

No answer.

He couldn’t let her leave, not like this, not at all. He tried the door. It was unlocked. He pushed it open slightly to notice a suitcase on the bed and Brenna placing her clothes inside. “Brenna, will you stop? I don’t want you to leave.”

She didn’t look up. “You said you didn’t want me.”

“I was only angry with Wyatt for how he’d manipulated me. How he’s always been able to get me to do what he wants.”

“I don’t think he put you on top of that bull, or caused your accident.”

“Of course he didn’t. But it’s a fact that he wanted me here. He wanted me as his partner in this ranch, wanted me to meet the Randells and become part of one big happy family.”

She paused and glared at him. “And you want me to sympathize with you for what again?”

“Okay, so it isn’t a capital offense. But he won’t butt out of my life.”

“It’s called being part of a family,” she retorted. “Deal with it, Gentry. Not everything is always about you. Don’t you know that your brother loves you? He’s trying to help you the only way he knows how. And all you’ve done is to get angry and be disagreeable.”

“I agree,” he admitted.

“And blame everyone else for your misfortune,” she continued, not hearing him.

“Hey, I said I agree.”

“You may be used to getting everyone’s attention while you’re perched on a bull, Dylan Gentry, but there are others to consider now.”

She had scraped off another layer of his hide. “What do you want?” he asked. “My blood? I said you’re right.”

She stared at him. “I am?”

“Yes. I’ve been a rotten bastard. Hard to live with and worse to deal with.” He sank down to the edge of the bed and looked at her. “Now, will you stay? Will you help me change? Help me walk again?”

Brenna was caught off guard by his sudden change. But from day one this man had had a tendency of doing just that…and more. If she was smart, she’d take this opportunity to get far, far away. But she couldn’t. She knew she could help him get back on his feet, help give him back a life. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be on the back of a bull.