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Would Thea be upset about her brother? Max had always been a ticking time bomb, and he’d gone completely off the rails tonight.

Brett released a long sigh. “Thanks for doing that. I know it was scary for you, but you did the right thing.”

Emerson shrugged and continued watching Thea and Sharon. “I know. Thea didn’t deserve what they did to her.”

Brett bumped his arm against Emerson’s. “You didn’t deserve it either.”

Emerson looked up at him. “What?”

“You didn’t deserve to be abused by Bruce all this time. None of it was your fault.”

Emerson’s tired expression turned to the floor, and she bit the inside of her cheek for a few seconds. “I didn’t know he wasn’t my dad.”

“I’m sure it never occurred to you. It definitely didn’t occur to me,” Brett said.

Emerson took a deep breath. “What does this mean?”

“It means we’re siblings. Like it or not.” He gave her a little smile. “We don’t have a dad, and we can’t depend on most of our family, but we have each other.”

Shaking her head, Emerson kept looking at the floor. “I don’t understand any of this. I thought he was my dad.”

Brett bumped the toe of his boot against her foot. “Hey.”

She looked up, fighting back tears and probably a dozen other emotions.

“It doesn’t matter who your parents are. It matters whoyouare.”

Emerson shook her head. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

“You can start over. Starting today. You can be whoever you want to be, and it doesn’t have to have anything to do with your family. You chose to help Thea, and that’s a good start in my book.”

Emerson brushed the back of her hand over her eyes and lifted her chin to Thea and Sharon. “Those two deserve to be together.”

“I couldn’t agree more. If Tommy is out of the picture, you think she’ll want to stay by herself?”

“Now that she can be with Thea, I can’t imagine we’ll get those two apart,” Emerson said.

Brett smiled. “I think I can make that happen.”

He and Thea had talked about moving in together now that they were married, but he hadn’t had a chance to tell her the news about their new cabin on the ranch, and the urge to belt it out was almost overwhelming.

“I guess I need to find a new place. My house is in Dad’s name. I mean, it’s in Bruce’s name. He won’t be so inclined to let me live there now that I ratted on him.”

“You know Thea and I aren’t going to leave you homeless. We’ll figure something out. But it’s probably a good idea to get your things packed up.”

Thea and her mom had separated only enough to talk, and the smiles on their faces were worth every hard moment they’d faced in the last few weeks. Keeping those two women together had moved high up on his priority list.

Sharon turned around and locked eyes with Brett. “I can’t thank you enough for saving her.”

Brett held up a hand. “No thanks needed. I would do anything for Thea.”

Sharon reached out a hand to him. “I’m glad the two of you have worked things out. I knew she loved you back then, and I’m glad you were still here when she needed help.”

“I’ll always be here,” Brett said as he took Sharon’s hand.

“And she just told me the two of you got married yesterday.”

Brett nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”