Free Can't Let Go by Jessica Lemmon Page A

funeral, Aiden had seen things more clearly. Remembering the way he’d shut Sadie out of his life, rejected her in the worst possible way, stung like alcohol on a fresh cut. He should have brought her in, no matter how bad the circumstances. His mother would have accepted her.
    His mother would have loved her.
    “If I could go back, I’d tell Mom the truth.” He swallowed thickly. “She deserved the truth.”
    “Don’t do that, man.” Shane clapped him on the shoulder. “You did what you believed was best. It was never going to be an easy situation.”
    True, but he’d taken an already hard situation and complicated the hell out of it. At his mother’s diagnosis, Aiden went into responsibility mode. With his sister in Tennessee, a brother in Chicago, his other brother in Columbus, and his father simultaneously grieving and working, everything had fallen on Aiden. When his mother said she wanted to move to Oregon to seek alternative treatments, Aiden rearranged his entire life and helped her do just that. Later, his siblings would argue with him about how they would have helped if they’d known about any of it. But Aiden knew in his gut there wasn’t enough time to pull everyone together for a powwow. “I appreciate you being here,” Shane said.
    Aiden snapped out of his reverie. “Oh, man, I’m sorry. I’m being a jerk on your big day.” He straightened in his chair, ashamed to have let melancholy overshadow his happiness for Shane and Crickitt.
    Speaking of, here she came, poured into a slim, white wedding dress, fabric flowers sewn into the flowing train. She grinned at Shane, her face full of love, her blue eyes shining. When she flicked a look over to Aiden, he promptly slapped a smile onto his face.
    “You look amazing, C,” he told her.
    Crickitt’s grin widened. “Thank you.”
    “And this reception.” He blew out a breath for effect. “The lights”—he gestured to the hundreds of strands draped inside the tent—“the flowers, the band.” The three-piece band included a formerly famous singer a decade past his heyday, but the guy still had it.
    Crickitt rested a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Shane insisted on all this. I wanted something simple. When he suggested getting married in a tent in Tennessee…I didn’t expect this .” She waved a hand around the interior of the tent; the shining wooden dance floor, the thick swaths of mosquito netting covering every entrance, the tall, narrow air conditioners positioned at each corner to keep the guests cool and comfortable during the warm June evening.
    She smiled down at Shane. “But it is pretty great.”
    “You’re pretty great,” Shane said, tugging her into his lap and kissing her bare shoulder. The wedding photographer swooped in, capturing the picture for posterity, a good one by the looks of it.
    Aiden picked the moment to excuse himself for a refill.
    Or maybe two.
    *  *  *
    Sadie caught movement out of the corner of her eye and swept her attention away from Crickitt’s attentive brother to see Aiden tracking his way across the tent in that easygoing lope of his.
    She’d never seen him in a suit until today. He wasn’t wearing the tie he wore earlier, picked to match her bridesmaid’s dress. She knew the intricate design by heart. She’d traced the tiny pink and silver paisley design, all the while trying not to allow the sorrow in his voice to crack through her defenses. He’d not only broken her heart last summer with a phone call. He’d broken her will, demolished her sense of true north. She couldn’t forgive him—or herself—for allowing it to happen.
    She’d cut the conversation short tonight, recalling the promise she’d made to never show her vulnerability to this man again, and stalked away from him as fast as her sparkly pink heels would carry her.
    Garrett turned his attention to someone else standing in their little circle and Sadie took the opportunity to watch Aiden. Tailored black pants