Sienna swallowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Dad, calm down.” Jase shifted in his chair and put a hand out in what Sienna guessed was an attempt to quiet Declan.
But the older man shook him off, rising from the table and moving toward Sienna. Cole stood, as well, like he was ready to protect her if needed.
“Sit down, Declan,” Cole said in a serious law enforcement tone. It sounded to Sienna like the sheriff had some experience with her father acting out.
“Turn your wrist over,” Declan commanded, ignoring Cole. Sienna obeyed automatically. She hated that her first instinct was to obey without question, even though Cole had called her a rebel. What a joke.
“Don’t touch her.” Cole blocked Declan when the older man reached for Sienna.
“He’s not going to hurt her,” Jase said, frustration lacing his tone.
“What’s for dessert?” Davey asked solemnly.
“In a minute, honey,” Emily told him.
The questions and comments swirling around Sienna sounded distant and muffled, as if they were coming through a tunnel. She was alone on the other end, her attention focused on the crescent-shaped scar on the inside of her arm, just to the right of the center of her wrist. It had been there since she could remember and had grown so faint over the years she’d all but forgotten it.
But as her father stared at the same spot, a memory flickered to life in the back of her mind. Like a flame exposed to air, it grew. She saw herself as a young girl, sticky with cotton candy at a summer carnival with the massive outline of Crimson Mountain as a backdrop.
She held a sparkling wand in her hand, making big circles in the air and laughing at the trail of light and smoke her movements made. Her brother was next to her and a dozen more kids all around them. Suddenly a whistle and a thunderous boom sounded. People around them clapped, but the noise startled Sienna and she let the sparkler drop to her other wrist, then screamed as the tip of it burned her skin.
Tears had come hot and fast, and Jase had called for someone. Sienna would have expected a younger Dana to be the one to rush over, but she could see her mother enraptured by the fireworks display as she laughed with her friends nearby. Instead, Declan peeled away from the crowd. He plucked the sparkler from her fingers, then hefted her into his arms.
“It’s all right, baby girl,” he told her. “It’s just a wee burn.” She buried her face in her daddy’s shirtfront, which smelled of beer and cigarettes—an oddly comforting combination to her little-girl senses.
“Make the noise stop,” she’d said in a whimper. “The boom makes it hurt worse.”
He’d carried her to the beer tent and taken a piece of ice from one of the kegs to rub over her red skin. She kept her eyes shut tightly, unwilling to look at the fireworks she blamed for her pain.
Now she glanced up to Declan’s knowing gaze. “You remember,” he repeated quietly and she gave a jerky nod.
“Remember what?” Cole demanded.
“Sienna got burned by a sparkler when she was little,” Jase said before she had a chance to answer. “She never liked fireworks after that.”
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Jase could recount the story as easily as Sienna. He’d been the one to call for help. But the fact that her brother and father seemed to know more details of her early life than she could remember rocked her to her core just the same.
“I’ve got to go.” Sienna pushed back from the table. “Thank you for dinner, Emily.” She forced herself to smile as she glanced around the table. “Thanks to all of you for making me feel welcome.”
She turned away and hurried into the house before anyone could stop her. Her biggest fear was that her dad would follow, forcing her to pull up more memories. Not that remembering the night she’d been burned was painful exactly, but she’d always told herself that neither Declan or Jase cared about her at all—that’s the reason they let her go.
She’d never questioned why her early childhood memories were somewhat blank in her brain. She figured there was nothing good to remember about the years she’d lived in Crimson.
But she was quickly coming to realize that wasn’t true. That knowledge seemed to change everything.
