His mouth snapped shut.
“Not one,” she cautioned him. “And I certainly would never throw one of your brothers under the bus if it was reversed.”
“Woman…”
“Don’t you fucking woman me. You’re right, this conversation is done and over with. Now, what are we doing for breakfast? Are you hungry?”
His mouth opened again, hung there for a good five seconds catching invisible flies before snapping shut once more. A few reactions she couldn’t read raced across his face.
After a few more seconds, she raised her eyebrows in question. “Breakfast?”
His expression smoothed out. “I could eat.” With that, he pulled the sheet over them, putting them back in their cocoon, slid his hot, naked self down her body and landed between her legs. A few seconds later, his mouth filled with something other than food, and he ate.
Breakfast started with a very explosive bang.
And then it all went to hell from there.
He hated that she insisted she come along to the house today. He would’ve preferred it if she had stayed at the motel while he checked on his father’s progress.
Of course, she wasn’t having it. And when Reilly wasn’t having something, she dug in her damn heels and became an unremovable, irritating splinter.
Most of his brothers had learned it was easier to give in to her than to keep fighting. The woman could be fucking exhausting.
Did he want to come back here today? Fuck no.
Did he keep coming back to this house as a form of self-flaying? Possibly.
If so, why did he feel the need to punish himself? If he was sane, he’d take Reilly, and all of her shit, back to Manning Grove and forget the parents who lived in this fucking house. Pretend they no longer existed.
To him and Saylor, they already died. So, why did he feel the need to stick around and actually witness it?
He didn’t have that answer.
Maybe he’d feel better once he knew John Schmidt was truly gone and was on his way to becoming only a distant memory. Maybe then Rev could shed some of the guilt that still hounded him from leaving Sarah behind that night.
But he was here now, in Coatesville, in the house he grew up in, and he might as well see it through to the end. Afterward, he could go home, assure Saylor the bastard was dead and she could live the rest of her life in peace.
He wasn’t sure that would work, but it was worth a shot.
At least it would be a guarantee that their father could never search for or possibly find her. The risk that he’d be hiding around the next corner to take her back would be down to zero.
Whether his sister could also extract the man from her nightmares, he didn’t know. He sure as fuck hoped so.
He didn’t have too many nightmares from his youth still haunting him but then, what happened to him and what happened to her—from what he could guess, even though she never admitted it—were two different things.
He could never begin to understand what she lived through. He could only be there for her, be supportive of her, if and when she needed it. It was the best he could do. Though, it would never make up for him running away without her.
To his knowledge, she never once held that against him. If she did, she never said a word. Maybe it was just one more thing she kept hidden and buried deep.
As soon as he and Reilly had entered the house a few minutes ago, his mother had caught sight of them and went out to the backyard to hang laundry without a word. Not even a greeting.
Surprisingly, she also didn’t demand they leave. Most likely she knew it wouldn’t do any good and didn’t even want to waste her breath.
He now stood at the kitchen sink staring through the window above it, watching the woman he wished had been a loving mother pin pants and shirts to the clothesline, keeping her back to him.
Shunning the “sinner.” Ignoring his very existence.
Reilly stood pinned to his side, a hand tucked under his shirt and planted on the bare skin of his lower back. Her touch grounded him. Made him aware she was being supportive. Reminded him she would remain there even when he wished she wouldn’t.
He really didn’t want her to witness the fucked-up relationship between him and the people who brought him into the world. He also didn’t want to subject her again to the bitter motherfucker who was supposed to be his father.
On the other hand, if anyone understood shitty parents, she would. Nothing she would see or hear would shock her.
“This house seriously gives me the creeps,” she whispered, bumping her hip against his.
“The house or the people who live here?”
“Both. There are no decorations, nothing to make it seem like a home. It’s very sterile and unwelcoming. I can’t imagine being a child and your childhood being whitewashed like this.”
“Whitewashed is a damn good way to describe it. ‘Cause it definitely was that in more ways than one.”
“Did they even hang any of your art on their refrigerator? Did they read you bedtime stories? Did you and your sister play games? Was laughter even heard in this house at all?”
He turned his head, pulling his gaze from his mother, a lifeless shell of a woman wearing her laundry apron full of clothes pins and stiffly hanging the wet laundry, and settling it on the very full-of-life woman he’d spent all morning making sigh and moan in pleasure. Not to mention, leave a huge wet spot on the bottom sheet.
Reilly’s face had been a work of art as she came during their adult games, he could easily read her mood, and he could still hear her laughter when he touched her somewhere that tickled.
Fun and passionate. Vocal and open. Totally opposite of his childhood.
“Do I need to answer that?”
“No. If this house looked the same when there were two children living in it as it does now…” She sighed, using the hand on his back to turn him toward her. She blinked her big green eyes up at him. “I don’t know how you didn’t turn out to be some sort of cardboard cutout of a man.”
“I left.”
“Yes, but not before some damage had already been done.”
“Instead of groomin’ me for the life they wanted me to live, their actions showed me what I didn’t want. I didn’t want this fuckin’ life. The submissive wife. The obedient daughters I was expected to ‘ready’ for their husbands. Didn’t want any of this fucked-up shit. Didn’t wanna be the one to continue the cycle of what I consider fuckin’ madness.”
She turned her gaze back outside to his mother. “Madness is a good word for it. I’ve only seen the very tip of the iceberg. I can’t image the rest.” She shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t want to. It breaks my heart for you and Saylor, it really does. I still don’t understand why you needed to come back here, but it’s not for me to understand. If it’s something you need, then it’s something you need and this is why I’m here with you.”
He wasn’t stupid, he knew coming along to clear out her storage unit had only been an excuse.
“Woman,” he breathed. She was wedging herself under his fucking skin without even trying. Like that damn splinter.
She glanced back up at him and squeezed his waist. “Can we just get done what you need to so we can get the hell out of this place? I’m worried that the house will start shifting wildly or we’ll see ghosts, or some monster will slither out of the cellar.”