“Give me your word, Lucas. Promise you won’t tell a soul about anything you saw. They can’t arrest your father. He knows things, things I can’t share, please understand that.” She squeezed his hand with a bruising grip.
“All right.” He agreed for no other reason than his mom asked it of him. If she believed his silence kept her safe, then he’d keep quiet. For now.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He stood and kissed her forehead. “I’ll take care of him when you’re ready. I’ll persuade him to leave us for good. Just give me the word.” He now had leverage over Dwight. Sorry, Mom. But if Dwight’s arrest meant he’d be out of their family picture, he’d tell the world what his father did. Paybacks were a bitch.
Lucas reaches the halfway point of his morning row and rests the paddle on his lap. The kayak bobs with the swell of the ocean, lulling him into a false sense of peace. His shoulders burn and biceps ache. His breathing comes long and deep.
He should have picked up Josh and taken him shopping. He’d promised Olivia. But he can barely look his nephew in the eye knowing he didn’t come to Lily’s aid when she needed him. His baby sister ran because she believed she shot Wes Jensen. He should have told her otherwise.
A lone seal swims under his kayak. He leans over and stares into the water’s murky depths. How easy it would be to tip over and sink below the surface. End the noise of horrific memories in his head. Nobody would find him. Would anyone care?
Lily would if she were here. She’d berate him for thinking such ridiculous thoughts.
But it’s thoughts of her and how she must have persevered all these years that keep him from capsizing. She’s stronger than them all. Olivia’s Dahlia Crimson. He paddles home at a PR pace, the wind at his back.
CHAPTER 16
“You are a godsend.” Olivia meets Amber on the walkway and takes the grocery bags off her hands.
“I have more in the car.”
“How much did you buy?” Olivia asks. Amber’s trunk is open and filled to capacity. Olivia’s never purchased that much food. It would spoil before she could eat her way through it.
“You’re feeding a teenage boy.” Amber returns to her car and Olivia takes the groceries to her kitchen.
After Lucas failed to show this morning to take Josh shopping, she called Amber, complaining about her brother. Nothing new. Lucas is unreliable. He avoids responsibility like a venereal disease. But it’s been a stressful few days and she didn’t need Lucas adding to it. She should have known he’d flake. She shouldn’t have mentioned Lily added him as Josh’s secondary guardian on the power of attorney if she couldn’t fulfill her duties. Amber, bless her, offered to pick up groceries when Olivia mentioned she hadn’t had the chance to place an order.
Olivia leaves the groceries on the kitchen island and meets Amber at her car. She eyes the bags. There’s no way two people will consume this much food in a week. Less than that if they find Lily sooner and Josh can go home.
“Trust me,” Amber says. “I see how much my clients with teens spend on groceries. It won’t go to waste.” She hands Olivia an overstuffed paper bag. The bag rips and Granny Smith apples roll down the drive. “Yikes!” Amber chases after them. “They’re going to bruise.”
Olivia’s phone rings. Distracted, she answers, expecting it’s Lucas with an excuse. “I’ve been trying to reach you all morning. You were supposed to pick up Josh hours ago. Where are you?”
“Uh . . . Olivia?”
She swears and glares at her screen. Blaze. Her first instinct is to tell him about everything since they last spoke: her parents, Lily, Josh, even Ethan. But it’s no longer her place to unload on him, even if up until the other day he’s been her source of comfort when she’s in a bind.
“Sorry. Thought you were Lucas.”
“Everything okay?”
Far from it. Nothing’s been normal since she broke up with Blaze. Her world was balanced with him in it. She’s been teetering since she knocked him out of it.
“Fine. What’s up?” she clips, juggling the torn bag so nothing else falls out.
“I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I know. Look, I’m really busy.” Amber takes the bag from her with a head tilt. Blaze, Olivia mouths. “Can we talk later?” she asks him without bothering to find out exactly what he wants to discuss. She just wants to get off the phone, and not because she doesn’t want to talk to him. The more she’s thought about the other day, the more embarrassed she is about her over-the-top reaction. Blaze didn’t deserve the way she handled things, or her lack of respect toward him. She owes him that apology she tried to give him the other night when he cut her off, and he deserves to hear it face-to-face. And maybe, she thinks, her conversation with Ethan fresh on her mind, she was wrong to end their relationship. She should have listened to Blaze. They should have worked through her concerns—and her insecurities—she reluctantly admits. But not right now.
“I’ll swing by tonight,” he offers.
“Sounds good.” She ends the call and pockets the phone.
“What did he want?” Amber asks as they take the remaining groceries into the house.
“To talk.”
She grins. “Knew it. You’re going to get back together.”
“Mm.” She’s not ready to commit to that.
Josh is rifling through the bags on the center island. He looks up when they enter the kitchen. “Hungry.”
“I got something just for you.” Amber pours him a cream soda over ice and digs out a box of extra toasty Cheez-Its. Olivia has never seen a kid look so happy.
“Aunt . . . O . . . has . . .” He gestures at the pantry. “It’s . . . empty.”
Olivia grimaces and he grins, taking his loot out back where he’s been hanging out all morning, filling his sketchbook. He’s been obsessively drawing pictures of where he lives. But without a city or street address, his home can be anywhere along the southern coast. She’s confident they’d find Lily quicker if he could read, but he complains words make him dizzy. The letters aren’t in order. They swirl around the page.
She glares at Amber. “Are you trying to kill him?”
“Huh?”
“Carbs and sugar. That’s the worst thing you can give him.”
“Your pantry is a teenage torture chamber. You smoke, but you have the most boring, bland food on the planet.”
“It’s healthy. Please tell me you bought something healthy.” She peeks into a bag, afraid of what she’ll find.
“What’s going on with you? Aside from Lucas being Lucas. You’re wound up,” Amber says, unpacking groceries.
“When am I not?” She rips open a bag of dried fruit and pops an apricot to take the edge off.
“More than usual,” Amber says.
Olivia eats another apricot and pulls out a stool. She sits at the island and gives Amber the rundown of the past few days from the police station and Charlotte’s odd remark about Dwight to Lily’s power of attorney in Josh’s backpack and Ethan’s visit.
“Hold up.” Amber raises her hands. “You saw him?” Olivia nods. “That must have been . . . interesting.”