Mrs. Robin's Sons by Kori Roberts (free children's online books .TXT) 📗

without waiting for their response and went through security. She walked toward her gate, never turning around to look at her friends again, hoping with everything in her that she could make it to the plane before she broke down and cried like a baby.

Chapter Twenty-five

“Zeus, come!” Nick watched the Doberman race toward him, his smooth, black coat glimmered in the sunlight as his powerful body moved across the yard with incredible grace and speed.

Once Zeus reached Nick, he sat down in front of him. Nick waited for a few moments before he held out his hand and revealed the treat inside, which Zeus eagerly ate from his hand.

“Good dog!” Nick petted him as he finished his treat.

“You and Noah were always so great with the animals.” Nick tensed at the sound of his mother’s voice behind him. “Your father loved training dogs, but he never had the natural skills and abilities with them, like you boys.”

Nick didn’t bother to respond as he continued to pet Zeus.

“Zeus is an amazing animal. He could easily sell for —”

“Zeus is not for sale.” Nick cut her off.

He heard his mother sigh. “Yes, I know. He was Rylee’s favorite, wasn’t he?”

Nick turned to his mother without answering her question. “What do you want,

Mom?” “I want you and Noah to be happy, but obviously, neither of you are.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I…I think I made a mistake.” She spoke quietly. Her eyes were sad as they stared back at him.

“I thought that once Rylee was out of your lives, you and Noah would move on and find some other women your own age to occupy yourselves with for a while, like you’d always done before you met her. But I underestimated just how deeply you two felt for her.”

Nick stared at his mother in silence and waited for her to continue.

“I did the same thing to Rylee that people did to your father when we first met. I refused to believe that a woman her age could possibly be interested in you and Noah for anything other than the obvious.”

Nick saw her eyes well up with tears. “And, I did the same thing to you and Noah that people once did to me. I just couldn’t accept that the two of you weren’t kids anymore, but grown men, who were old enough to recognize true love when you found it — even if it was with the same woman.”

“What are you saying, Mom?” Nick’s heart ached. He was torn between the anger he felt at his mother for the way she’d treated Rylee, Noah, and him; and the pain he felt as he looked into her eyes that were filled with so much sorrow.

“I’m saying I was wrong.” She sniffed. “I was wrong about a lot of things.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “She came by to see you.” She spoke so softly, Nick almost didn’t hear her.

“Who came by?” Nick and his mother both looked up to see Noah in the doorway.

“Rylee…she came by to see you last month right after the breakup, and I sent her away.” Her voice cracked. “I was wrong. I’m so sorry.”

“You did what?”

“And you’re just telling us now?” “You had no right!”

Nick and Noah were talking at the same time, their angry words clashing. The

anguished sound of their mother’s sobs stopped them instantly, and they stared at her in shocked silence.

Nick didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t seen his mother cry like that since his father died.

“Mom, please…don’t.” Nick’s words seemed to make her cry even harder, and he

looked at Noah helplessly.

Noah walked up to her and wrapped his arms around her in comfort.

“I’m sorry that we yelled at you. But…” Noah sighed. “You really should have told us.”

“You’re right.” She nodded, and her body trembled with emotion. “I thought I was helping, but I realize now that I only made things worse for everyone.”

She reached up to stroke Noah’s cheek. “I just wanted you to be happy. I won’t pretend to understand it, but I can accept the fact that Rylee is the person that makes you happy.”

She turned to Nick and gave him a tremulous smile. “That makes you both happy.”

*

After they locked up Zeus and checked on the other dogs, Nick and Noah walked their mother home. They sat and talked with her for a while before they headed back to their own house.

Nick knew that it was still going to take some time before their relationship with their mother returned to normal. But it was a lot better than it had been in a long time.

When they got home, Nick looked at Noah. “Should we try and call her?”

Noah shook his head. “I think she changed her number. She hasn’t answered her home phone in weeks.” “Yeah, she must have changed her cell phone number, too. The old one is disconnected.”

“I see I’m not the only one who’s been trying to reach her,” Noah commented.

“Yeah, well, as pissed off as I was about what happened, I still didn’t like how things ended between us.” Nick sat on the couch and put his head in his hands for a moment.

Finally, he looked up at Noah.

“What if we got it wrong, man? What if it was no big deal, just like Rylee said? What if we were the ones who screwed everything up, and not the other way around? We never even heard her side of the story, never gave her a chance to explain herself. We just walked away.”

“You’re right.” Noah shook his head, his expression filled with self-disgust. “If she doesn’t hate us already, she probably should.”

“So,” Nick said quietly, “what do you want to do?”

Noah’s determined gaze locked with his, and he confirmed what Nick already knew. “I want to go and find our redhead.”

Chapter Twenty-six

“I’m sorry, sir. Ms. Putnam no longer works here,” the front desk clerk said.

“What?” Nick and Noah’s shocked responses sounded at