“Missing? How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. They found Elena but not the gun. She was knocked out, just where I left her, but no gun.”
Maybe I was too damn tired to put the pieces together. “Who has it?”
“That’s the question.” He rolled his shoulders, his voice tight. “Without it, Elena is under suspicion, but now so is my mother.”
The young man sounded cooler, calmer. His good-ol’-boy Tennessee accent was returning. The surprise of my questions had worn off. He was finding his composure, wrapping himself in it. My window of interrogation was at an end.
“Turn here.” I pointed to a wide shoulder. “We can go back now.”
“Not yet,” he said, his hands flexing on the wheel. “I saw you. I saw you and her leave together on your bike.”
“I don’t have time to discuss this. Turn around at the next shoulder. We’re finished.” I rubbed my forehead.
He passed another turnoff. “You’re going to make time.”
“It’s none of your business.” I needed to check in with Genevieve, find out what happened at the sheriff’s station. Then I needed to get some sleep—just three hours should do it—then I needed to see Diane. She needed to know Isaac had shot Kip after the man was already dead.
“You promised,” he said, sounding less angry than disappointed. “You promised me.”
Maybe it was the lack of sleep, but I suspected it had more to do with the events of the last twenty-four hours. Life is short. Mine had sucked, mostly. I didn’t have good news, ever. And this was good news to me. This was my good news amidst all the shock, fear, and inconvenient timing. I couldn’t tell Diane; I couldn’t make my good news just another something else she had to deal with. Isaac might’ve been the only person I could tell.
“I’m in love with her,” I said. Finally.
I don’t know if he looked at me or what his reaction was. I didn’t know if he believed me. I didn’t care. I loved her. I loved Diane and I felt grateful for the chance, for the weeks leading up to right now. With everything blown apart and gone to shit, at the least—at the very least—I had that. And that was a fuckuva lot.
“What?” His question came sharp and sudden, like a crack of thunder.
Shrugging, I repeated myself, “I’m in love with her. I’m in love with your mother.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he seethed, pissed off all over again. This was the same anger he’d been carrying when he approached me at the Dragon just a half hour ago.
“If I could, if she’d come with me, I’d take her away. Today. With me.” I wasn’t talking to Isaac, I was just talking, maybe even daydreaming a little. “I would’ve taken her away weeks ago if I thought there’d been a chance in hell she would’ve gone with me.”
“Of course she’ll never go with you,” he ground out, leashing the sharp edge of his voice, lashing out with words instead. “You are nothing compared to her. You aren’t worthy to breathe the same air. You are nothing.”
“I know that, Isaac.”
He flinched at my use of his real name, and he also slowed the car, pulling onto a shoulder. But he didn’t turn around. Diane’s son faced me. I faced him. And we regarded each other.
“How long has this been going on?”
“For a while. Since this Christmas.” I had no reason not to answer, but I made sure he knew how tedious I found his questioning and his company. He wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t thought myself. But it wasn’t up to me, and it wasn’t up to him to determine my worthiness. It was up to Diane.
“Not since last Christmas?” he challenged, his eyelids drooping.
“No. I left her alone, I didn’t speak to her. I kept my promise.”
“Until you didn’t,” he said, cold and matter of fact. “So what changed?”
“I crashed near her house on Christmas night. I spun out in the snow and ice. My phone was busted, and it was freezing. She let me in.” I told him the facts, but I gave him nothing else. No regret. No apology. He could kiss my ass.
Isaac shook his head, and I thought I saw some of his anger ease, replaced with something else. “You promised.”
Unexpectedly, guilt picked at my ribcage. I looked at this young man, my hard-ass exterior slipping just a little. Keeping promises meant a great deal to him, apparently. Or, mine had, for some reason.
His eyes are the same color as Diane’s.
“I know,” I said, my voice gentler than I’d planned. But I was tired. Now that we were talking like this, I simply said what was on my mind, “Believe it or not, it’s the first time I’ve broken a promise. The very first time. But I have no regrets. If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve broken it sooner. I would’ve told you to go to hell and done what I wanted over a year ago. Because she is the best thing that has ever happened to me. She is so much light, she blinds me. And I love her. I need her more than I need to breathe.”
He shook his head, his glare becoming something else, and it felt heavy with disappointment. “You’re a liar and you’re a piece of shit.”
“No. I’m not. I’ve never been a liar.” I wiped a hand over my face, took a deep breath, and settled him with a level stare. “And I’m not a piece of shit, not anymore. Breaking that promise was the best thing I ever did, for Diane and for me. Because I’m the one that got her out of there when her hands were covered in blood, and she was in shock, and she’d just seen her son shoot his father. I’m the one who listened to her cry and held her that night while her heart broke. I’m the one who called a lawyer and helped Diane craft a story because she doesn’t want to see you go to prison. And I’m the one who will do whatever it takes—whatever it takes—to keep her safe now.”
Isaac stared at me, assessing, giving nothing of his thoughts away. Even if he had been giving his thoughts away, I was too tired to do anything with them. I didn’t need his approval.
I just needed him to drive back to the Dragon.
“Your mother is, and from this point forward always will be, my first and only priority. That’s who I am now. So, turn this fucking car around right fucking now and take me back to the Dragon so I can get some damn sleep.”
Chapter Nineteen
*Diane*
“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“Where is that darn sugar?” I mumbled to no one, twisting at the waist and blinking around the kitchen. I thought perhaps I’d make an attempt at normalcy and bake something, but I couldn’t find the sugar. I needed sugar to bake something.
Unable to locate the sugar, I began to cry.
Covering my face with both hands, I slid down the cabinets to the floor, pulled my knees up, and cried and cried and cried. Sugar was just another final straw after a long series of final straws. I was living in a nightmare, I couldn’t seem to wake up, and—I was ashamed to admit it, but—I had no idea how much time had elapsed since the event.