A bitter laugh escaped me. “A choice. Only you would believe an ultimatum is a choice.”
“It’s up to you. But that trust is only yours by my grace, and I’ll be goddamned if I let you use my money in such a despicable way.”
My hands trembled, my voice low. “Did you do it? Did you set me up?”
“Does it matter? Wouldn’t change anything.” I must have had a look about me because he added, “And before you think about pulling something, just remember who I am and think twice.”
Trapped, caught in his snare, with no way out but surrender.
He seemed to know it, but he didn’t look smug. Disappointed, perhaps. Angry, most definitely. But he wasn’t proud.
I didn’t hate him any less for it.
He stood, looking down at me for a long moment. “End things on both fronts, or your name will come off the account. It’s suspended at the moment, but as soon as I get word from you, I’ll approve any withdrawals you need. And they’ll be held for approval from here on out.”
Without waiting for my response, he headed for the door, pausing in the threshold to look back at me.
“One more thing,” he said. “No one can know about our … arrangement. If anyone in this town even whispers that I had something to do with any of this, you’ll never see another penny. Am I understood?”
I understood well enough. I nodded once, barely restrained. With an answering nod, he saw himself out.
My breath came in bursts, blood whooshing in my ears, clouding my vision. Somewhere far away, the door closed, and my happiness was on the other side, in Mitchell’s pocket.
I could save everything I loved, everything that meant anything to me. Except for her.
A roar ripped from my throat, my hands sweeping the desk, sending everything on the surface crashing to the floor. I laid my palms flat on the bare desktop, shoulders heaving and head hung, my mind a maze. But there was no escape.
Only dead ends.
25
WHAT IT IS
DAISY
The second I saw Keaton’s face on opening my front door, I knew that something was wrong.
Pain. He was composed of dark and heavy pain, bolted to the ground, immovable.
“What happened?” I asked, stepping toward him.
He closed his eyes when I reached for him, his brows knitted and his face tight. He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed like he’d never touch me again.
The thought sent a shock of fear through me.
“Walk with me,” he said roughly, pulling away and taking my hand.
Silently, I closed the door, my hand still in his as he towed me away from the house, up a path into the woods where our old treehouse still stood, waiting for a new generation to occupy it.
He said nothing for a long time, and I didn’t press, giving him the space to say what he needed to say. But dread sank through me until my feet were cement blocks.
“I’m sorry…” he started, but trailed off.
I snuck a glance at his beautiful profile, watching him grapple with what he needed to say. I knew, somehow, that this was the end. Of what exactly, I wasn’t sure. But the distance between us was deep and wide, the gap bridged by my hand in his. When he let it go, there would be no reaching him again. This much, I knew.
He swallowed hard, the knot at his throat bobbing. When we were in the shade of an ancient oak, he stopped and turned to me, though his eyes were on our hands as he toyed with my fingers.
“Daisy, my business is in trouble. Big trouble I’m not sure I can get out of. I … I have to stop work on the shelter.”
My disappointment was overshadowed by relief that the end wasn’t what I imagined. I stepped into him, laid my palm on his chest. “Keaton, you have to take care of your family. If that means the shelter is on hold for now, I understand. There might even be a way for Grant to—”
He shook his head. “No. I have to stop for good. I can give you the name of a few other companies I’d trust. They might be more expensive, especially since they’re in the major cities, but they’ll finish the job and do it right. But I … I can’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. I know, but I need you to accept it all the same.”
Solemnly, I nodded against my disappointment. “All right.”
“There’s more. I just … I don’t know how to …”
His voice was tight, strained as he kept hold of his emotions. I saw them behind his downcast eyes.
“Keaton, it’s okay,” I soothed. “You can tell me anything, if it’ll help.”
He shook his head. “It’s not okay. Nothing about this is okay.”
Any relief I’d summoned drained out of me.
“You are the best thing to happen to me, maybe ever. I can’t remember ever being so happy. I can’t remember loving like this, but I do. I love you, Daisy Mae.”
My lungs filled in a gasp and locked. Tears pricked my eyes. “I love you too. I didn’t think I ever would again, not until you.”
“But I can’t see you anymore.”
That hopeful breath slipped out of me with my heart on its tail. “I … you what?”
He still hadn’t looked at me, just kept shaking his head and working the lump in his throat. “I can’t … I can’t see you anymore. And I want to tell you why, I want to tell you everything. But I can’t. Daisy, my family and my business depend on it—I’ll lose everything. I’m sorry. I wanted … I want to …” His voice broke. He didn’t finish speaking.
“I don’t understand, Keaton. What do you and I have to do with your business?”
“I can’t. Please. Please don’t ask, or I won’t be able to stop myself.”
My brain zipped and scrambled to make sense of it. What conditions for his livelihood could have to do with me? How could his being with me stop his business from surviving? Unless …
“Mitchell,” I whispered.
His face broke, and he pulled me into his arms, crushed me to his chest, buried his face in my neck, his trembling breath warm against my skin. For a long moment, we held on to each other, and my tears fell silently, rolling down my cheeks until they were caught by Keaton’s shirt. There was nothing left to say. He was a victim of his circumstance, and I accepted our fate with the bitter pain of futile injustice.
Keaton was always too good to be true. Deep down, I think I’d always known I wouldn’t get to keep him. History was never in my favor in this, the curse I didn’t believe in but wholly consumed me making itself known. It was easier to subscribe to it. At least this way, there was something to blame.
Beyond Mitchell, of course, never above extortion. He almost always got his way, in the end. The only times he didn’t were due to my family’s interference. It was no wonder he hated us.
The feeling was entirely mutual.
Keaton leaned back only far enough to kiss me, a kiss deep with longing and goodbye, with silent prayers and dreams lost. A kiss made on salty lips from tears shed over a thing we could never have.
Love.
The kiss broke, our foreheads together, his hand in the curve of my neck and our breaths mingling.