“You nasty wicked slut!” Mother Abigail barked at her. “He did you a favor. You haven’t heard the tape! Trust me when this town finds out—”
“Yea. Yea. Yea. I know. When the town finds out I will have to live with the shame.” Delilah laughed.
“Baby, don’t laugh at this. It’s serious,” Delores pleaded.
“Be quiet Mama. This isn’t my problem. All this time I thought this was something I needed to fix. I don’t have to. Not anymore! Use the tape. Spread the lies! Let’s see what that does for Tyson and any hopes you have for saving his political legacy that’s now in the toilet. Use it,” Delilah said. “I dare you, bitch.”
The smug look of triumph Mother Abigail had on her face when she walked into the house was gone. This was the last she’d ever have to deal with the woman. “You played my grandmother. You played my mother. You destroyed Gayle and your sons. You won’t destroy me or Queen. I don’t care anymore. I’m free. Goodbye, Abigail.”
Mother Abigail smiled. “Well done, dear. But this isn’t over. Trust me.”
She left.
“Delilah,” Her mother began through her sobs. “He wasn’t my child. She lied to him. He confronted me after you were married and I tried to tell him the truth. He didn’t believe me. I would have never let you marry your brother. He believed a lie.”
“Don’t say a word to me about this. Never speak of it again. None of it! Ever!” Delilah pointed the finger at her mother. “Get your things and go home to daddy. I don’t want to see you, talk to you. Period!” Delilah ran up the stairs. She went straight to her room, where Maverick and Noah waited for her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
AFTERMATH
“Here, drink this,” Maverick said.
The bottle of scotch and a few shot glasses were found in a desk drawer of her office. He brought the liquor back to the room after hearing only part of the tale. When he offered her a drink, she refused. His sweetheart was a wine-only kind of girl. He imagined the scotch belonged to Charles. Still, he insisted. Delilah wanted to talk. She continued to share a tangled story of secrets. Noah rested against her breast, locked in her arms as if he too tried to comfort her. Maverick’s beautiful Delilah wide stretched eyes began to tremble with tears. It was in her nature to protect. She needed more protection from her mother and Abigail than Maverick could have ever imagined.
Maverick had witnessed shock before. Rookies who joined his task force after a really violent night of gunfire and death during hostage situations or gang wars were left with the same calm look of trauma. He’d suffered it the first year of his career on the police force. Since Delilah returned to him and Noah, she barely blinked. She shared her mother’s deepest betrayal of her trust in a monotone voice, and Maverick listened without questions. He used to dream of having a family-like hers as a kid.
“Take a sip for me,” he said.
Delilah looked up from rocking and relaxing Noah at the whiskey glass in his hand.
“Go on,” he encouraged. He held the shot glass in front of her face until she took it.
“I can’t face Queen,” she said after she accepted the glass. “Maverick, she’s waiting for me in the cottage. I can’t go there,” she said. “Did you hear what I said? What was done to her mother was our fault. Charles was her brother and he and this town treated Queen like garbage.”
Maverick watched her drink the whiskey glass clean. He poured her another shot and gave her the glass and then went to the dresser and set the bottle down. “What you told me was deep. I get it. But Queen’s tough. She can handle the truth.”
“No. Not this truth. You don’t know her like I do. She’s not tough. She’s just overlooked emotions. She’s learned over the years never to surrender to them. Everyone in her life ignores her feelings but me! I’m the only one that protects her and Shelly both!”
“Okay, sweetheart,” Maverick put his hands up in defeat.
“I know I owe the truth to her, to be honest, but I can’t do it right now. What if she can’t forgive me? And Shelly? Her parents got divorced because of what Mama and Mother Abigail did. Shelly and her mother weren’t the same afterward,” Delilah's voice broke with regret.
“Guilt by association doesn’t make it your fault,” Maverick reasoned.
“It’s my burden. Peter Collins never touched me. He did it to them. Don’t you see? I benefited from their misery. Look at me. Queen’s life was hard here, especially when I left for college. She worked odd jobs sweeping the floor at the beauty salon, delivering medicine to old people from the pharmacy on her bike, collecting bottles and cans, and turning them in for a change. If she didn’t do it, she couldn’t keep food in her house. I was gone for years, and she was forgotten in this town. Everything was taken from her.”
“Look at me.” Maverick stooped to remain eye level with her. “Look at me.” He rewarded her with the best smile he could muster. “It’s more to you and your life than what was done to you. Even if it doesn’t feel that way. And that goes for Queen. It’s true for your friend Goodiva, too.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, but he suspected she did.
“I’m telling you, babe, you aren’t your mother, and you sure as hell don’t belong to all of this. You belong to Noah and me. What happened to you three as kids didn’t break any of you. From my fifty-foot view, it looks like it turned you all into some badass women.”
“You think I’m a badass?” she smiled.
“Hell yeah, I do. You got me in line quick. Broke all my defenses the first night I spent with you,” he winked. “Queen is strong too. You made sure she was a fighter, not a victim, when you stood up to Peter Collins. You did that at ten. That’s really badass, baby.”
It was his job to give him the things she didn’t imagine. He was a selfish man in his marriage. He was selfish with Camille too. But now, those ghosts were banished. Who he was with Delilah was the man he wanted to continue to be. “Don’t worry. I’ll help you.” He stood. He cupped the back of her head and drew it toward him to kiss her forehead. “Lie down. Let me talk to Queen and her partner. Make up an excuse until you’re ready to face her. I think you deserve a break today.”
He kissed her twice. She nodded her gratitude, and he pulled off her shoes and drew the cover over her. When she seems to be relaxed, he felt a sense of calm too.
Maverick dressed and put on his baseball cap and shoes, ready for battle. He bounded down the stairs and stopped mid-way to find Delores pacing. Delores looked up at him, equally surprised. “How is she? Can I talk to her now?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. She’s not feeling well,” Maverick said.
Delores nodded. She began to pace the floor again.
“Can I ask you a question?” Maverick asked.
Delores nodded but wouldn’t stop her frantic movements.
“Actually I have two questions,” he said.
“Okay,” Delores replied.
“Does her father know what you did?” he asked. “The story you told her about the coverup, was he part of it?”