“Shhh,” my mother says, squeezing my hand. “You have help now.”
Yes. I have help now. For all that Elijah was determined to protect me, it was a very specific form of help. My own personal bodyguard. But I’ve needed a different kind of help, and my mother can provide that. “I think she needs rehab.”
“We’ll worry about that,” she says. “Did you think you needed to carry it all on your shoulders? London is my baby. She’ll always be my baby. I love that you care for your sister, but she’s not your responsibility. You know that, right?”
My brain understands, but my heart rebels. It wants to fix everything and everyone that I love. Including London. Including Elijah. “That’s why I left. Because I was a danger to Elijah. As long as I was around, he’d just keep protecting me and protecting me. It was toxic, that form of protection. He didn’t even want to let me leave the house.”
She hesitates. “Holly, you know how your father and I met?”
“You were on your road trip. You met him at a diner. He bought you dinner.”
“Yes,” she says, drawing out the word. Her hands fidget, tugging at the embroidered fabric of the bedspread. “The truth is he was… pushy. He was in a bad place, and he did bad things.”
I stare at her. “Mama, what are you saying?”
“I never thought I’d share this with you, but—” She gives a small, helpless laugh. “I suppose you definitely are my daughter.”
It’s strange, the pride I feel at that sentence. London was always like my mother. Always beautiful and delicate and vulnerable. Everywhere we go, people know they’re related instantly. I’m the odd daughter. The different one, but I can’t mistake the rueful possession in her voice. The certainty that we are alike in some deep, ineffable way.
She looks into the distance, and I know she’s seeing the past. “There are things I won’t tell you, things you shouldn’t know. But your father was in a dark place in his life. He took it out on me. He did things that were… unforgivable.” She focuses on me here, in the present. “I forgave him anyway. There are people who would call that weak, but I prefer to think of it as strength.”
“Are you saying that I should have stayed with Elijah?” My heart lifts just thinking about the possibility. It’s only been twelve hours, but already I miss him.
“Goodness no. I hardly know anything about this man. Some of that’s because we haven’t had much time, but I suspect you’re leaving a lot out on purpose. No, I don’t think you should be with him. I’m saying you should get to make your own decision now that you’re grown. And no one, not even your father or I, get to judge you for them.”
My throat feels tight. “Thank you, Mama.”
“So what happens now? Are you still in some trouble?”
“No, I’m safe now.” Even though it had felt gross to negotiate with the lieutenant colonel, there had been some relief at being able to manage the situation. Some power, too. It had felt better than sitting in some ivory tower, waiting for Elijah to rescue me. “I think… I think I’d like to go back to my old life. To feel like my old self again.”
The woman who had not needed a man in her life. A career, friends. I’d had everything I needed. There is no space in my life for a man who needs danger to feel alive. Even if it feels like leaving him left a hole in the center of my heart.
She pulls me into a hug, both of us still seated on the bed. The warmth of her arms, the weight of them, makes my chest hitch. There are moments to be a strong, independent woman. And there are moments when you can fall apart. In my mother’s arms, I release every weapon and line of defense. There’s only me, missing a boy, loving him from afar, as I sob against her shoulder. She holds me for what feels like hours, murmuring sweet nothings.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Holly
I’m washing dishes when my dad comes into the kitchen. He stands next to me, staring out at the deck through the picture window. Mom and London are drinking tea, both of them casually gorgeous. My dad built the white Adirondack chairs himself. Beyond them you can see endless rows of gravel paths and garden beds. It looks like a photograph in a glossy magazine about quaint cottage living.
No one would guess that the younger one was hurting for a line of coke.
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” my father murmurs.
“It’s a long story.”
“You’ve been here three weeks.”
It’s been a restorative three weeks, being pampered by our parents, feeling protected in this place where we spent parts of our childhood. My mother has been very understanding of our secrecy. She agreed to keep the story private, knowing that my father would lose his mind.
My father wants a name and an address. He suspects some of the things that happened, and he wants to commit murder.
“It doesn’t matter what happened,” I say, my voice light. I’m home now. The thought of him facing off with Elijah makes me shiver. I love them both, and a meeting would probably end with one of them dead. Elijah is a hardened soldier, and my father is tough in his own way.
“How can you say that?” He picks up a dish and begins drying. I know it’s his attempt to appear casual when he really wants to bend a crowbar in half. But he already tried stomping around. He already tried yelling and threatening, but we’ve been silent. “Someone hurt you. That much is clear. There’s a sadness about you that wasn’t there before.”
The sadness is from leaving Elijah. The sadness is from missing him, but telling that to my father won’t help. Not if I have to explain that I met Elijah in a prison cell. “Listen. There are people out there who could hurt me. They could hurt you, so it’s better if I don’t say anything.”
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know they’re wrong. He looks furious. “Let them come after me. Do you know what it does to me knowing I failed my little girls? That you needed protection and I wasn’t there for you?”
“Dad, I’m all grown up. I have been for a while.”
He sets the dish down and pulls me in for a hug. “You’ll always be my little girl. And I wanted to be overprotective. Maybe I still was. Your mother stayed my hand, because of the way she was raised. With a fist so clenched she couldn’t even breathe. Did she tell you that?”
“No, but she said something about the way you met.”
He looks away. “Hell.”
In this moment he sounds like Elijah. “I thought she met you on a road trip.”
“That’s a nice euphemism for how it happened. The same way you keep telling me that you decided to travel the world on the spur of the moment.”
I squeeze him back, the strong, protective solidity of him. “There are some things that only make sense to the people who experienced them. You raised two girls who know how to take care of themselves.” That much is true. We evaded experienced security professionals. We faced off against international thugs and made it out alive. “Now you need to trust us.”
He kisses my forehead. “You might be right about that. Some things only make sense to the people who experienced them. But I’ll tell you this much. You ever point a finger at someone, you ever so much as nod in their direction, I’ll rip his fucking throat out.”