* * *

That evening after supper and working with Firecracker, Erin walked down to the log by the creek. She wanted some time to think and sort through her childhood memories, which seemed to be slipping back into her mind with alarming frequency now that she’d been working with Firecracker every day. It wasn’t a pleasant turn of the leaf for Erin.

She was startled when Wyatt suddenly swung a leg over the log and sat down beside her. “You need to stop sneaking up on me like that,” she said with faux aggravation, hoping to make him laugh. She loved the deep, natural sound when mirth caught him by surprise and he just let go. “I came down here to think.”

“Oh, wow,” he said with a grin. “Erin, thinking. What did you come down here to contemplate?”

“My childhood,” Erin confessed. “You were right, Wyatt. Working with Firecracker has helped me look at things and see them for what they really were instead of the way my father painted them.”

“And what are your conclusions?” he asked.

Erin tried not to notice the heat that radiated from his body and warmed her arm. “I’ve concluded that my father is a male chauvinist pig.”

Wyatt chuckled. “Okay. I’m listening. Well, not really. That’s a figure of speech. But unload it on me.”

Erin took a deep breath. “I don’t know why it took me so long to see him for what he is, because the signs have always been there. My mom, for instance. My dad doesn’t respect her or appreciate anything she does. I don’t know how it is between them behind closed doors, but outside the bedroom, their relationship is pretty much a dead zone. My mother hyper-focuses on being a housewife. My father couldn’t care less how hard she works to keep his world perfect. He reads the paper while he eats, barely speaking to her at the table. Then he watches television. She’s a fixture in his life. As a child, I would have been ignored as well if he hadn’t decided to turn me into a boy. Remembering those days makes me so angry.”

Wyatt looped an arm around her shoulders and drew her snugly against him. Erin wanted to make love with him so badly that a tremor coursed through her body. When he bent his head to kiss her forehead, she knew he felt desire, too.

“You have every right to be angry with your father,” he said, his voice gone husky. “What he did was wrong. Eventually, you’ll get beyond the anger, though. I was so angry in my late teens and early twenties, but I finally came to realize none of the people in my life who made me feel broken had intentionally done so. They truly were trying to help me.”

“My father wasn’t trying to help me. He was trying to change me into the son he wanted.”

“True, and I won’t argue with you. He’s definitely a misogynist. But at this point in your life, Erin, holding on to anger will get you nowhere. You need to see your father for what he is and realize he was probably raised to have that mind-set. The next thing you should ask yourself is if your father can help being the way he is.” When Erin stiffened, Wyatt tightened his arm around her. “Just listen for a minute. I’m not making excuses for the man. But I am pointing out that childhood experiences do play a part in molding us into the adults we become. Look at me. Look at yourself. Do any of us reach adulthood without having some hang-ups? I seriously doubt it. Some people want to wallow in misery and complain about things they endured as kids, but are they ever really happy and content with themselves? That should be our aim as adults, to move forward and create our own lives. If we live in the past, we can’t move on.”