“Fuck if I know.” Squeezing my hand, Patrick tugged the door open against its protesting hinges. We leaned into each other, bracing for the worst, but found it filled with neatly stacked boxes, all labeledAbigaelin precise architect’s lettering. Patrick rocked back on his heels, inhaling sharply.
“Who is Abigael?”
“My mother.” He peered into a box, and retrieved a lace handkerchief. He turned it over in his hands several times, his fingers brushing over the delicate lace. “That crazy bastard.”
The next two contained more of his mother’s things—her wedding dress, jewelry, quilts, journals, photo albums, aprons, clothes—and it was clear Patrick hadn’t seen any of it in ages. Shock and pain etched his features with each discovery. Carefully wrapped crystal and china filled the next three. Another closet held an assortment of large framed pieces interspersed with hand-painted portraits of the house and Patrick’s family.
The final three closets housed boxes labeled for Patrick and each of his siblings. He sighed as his fingers brushed dust from the lids, the tense expression on his face telling me he knew what was hidden in each. Inside his box, he lifted a faded yellow photo album from the top, and a heartbreaking groan slipped from his lips as he opened it.
The first photo showed a stunning redhead proudly cradling a newborn baby, and her radiant smile jumped off the page. The baby’s bright eyes gazed up at his mother from his spot on the slope of her chest. “Shannon looks so much like your mother,” I said, shining a flashlight over his shoulder. “And you were a huge baby.”
Patrick shut the book suddenly and returned it to the box. “We need to get out of here.” Patrick collected a few items from the closets and secured the doors, and we retreated through the passageway and onto the porch. It was dark, and I couldn’t believe we spent hours exploring that tunnel.
“I guess we know why the room dimensions changed,” I coughed. I guzzled some water to wash away the thick coating of dust from my throat.
Patrick approached with his hand reaching for my hair. Warily, I stepped out of his grasp but he continued toward me.
“Andy, stop. There’s a cobweb.” He stilled me with a rough hand to my shoulder, and I stared at his royal blue polo shirt. “Didn’t know how to get out of his hole,” he muttered, his fingers sifting through my hair. “I get that he couldn’t deal with it. Fine. But did he really need to build a cave and hide everything there? He couldn’t have bought a fucking storage unit like normal people? This is officially psychotic.”
His questions weren’t meant for me, and I remained quiet. His hands stayed in my hair, and though I suspected the cobwebs were adequately dispatched, I didn’t protest his touch.
“What kind of gamble was that?” Patrick continued. “What if we never found that door? What if we sold this place and never knew? That required years of work. That’s what this does to people, Andy. It’s insane, and destructive, but it’s what this does.”
Patrick’s eyes met mine, his hands forming tight fists in my hair. “There are things that we’ll never understand. People do illogical things that don’t fit into neat columns, and we’ll never know why.”
“He told us he destroyed everything but he spent years building a secret shrine. That’s what this does to people, Andy. Don’t you see?” His hands loosened their hold on my hair and settled on my shoulders, his thumbs brushing back and forth against the pulse in my throat.
I wanted to wrap my arms around Patrick and protect him from his pain and everything locked in those closets. He was so much more than the sum of his scars.
Patrick’s fingers tilted my head back, his eyes dropping to my lips. “Please, just…I don’t know how to do this without you.”
His lips touched mine, and that force drew my hands to his chest. His kisses started soft and cautious—asking permission. Patrick’s hands held me in place, and his kisses turned deeper, slowly growing more demanding—asking forgiveness.
I pulled back, shaking my head as I put distance between us. “I used to think I could be everything you needed. I don’t know if…I can’t do this, Patrick.” I grabbed my things and hurried off the porch. With one fleeting look before settling into my MINI Cooper, I met Patrick’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
PATRICK
Waiting for Erinto arrive in Chatham was the most difficult part of withholding news of Andy’s discovery at Wellesley, but I had no intention of going through it twice. Erin was already excluded from too much. With everyone huddled around the patio fireplace, I paced back and forth with a box under my arm.
“Shannon, hurry the fuck up,” I snapped. She leaned against the bar, gesturing animatedly with her beer bottle as she spoke to the bartender. She was doing everything in her power to avoid Erin.
“Yes, Optimus, we know it’s your turn to talk.” She sat on the arm of Sam’s chair and waved her hand in the direction of the box. “Have you ventured into prop comedy now?”
“Shut up, Shannon,” I muttered. “Andy was at Wellesley, at the house today and—”
“Who’s Andy?” Erin asked.
“She’s an architect working under Patrick,” Matt supplied.
Riley broke into hysterical, gasping laughter. “You can say that again,” he choked.
He dropped his head to Erin’s shoulder while he rocked back and forth on the loveseat they shared, repeatedly snorting and slapping his thigh. I was ready to toss his ass in the ocean. Let the sharks deal with him and his inability to keep a goddamn thing to himself.
“Already time to cut you off, young man?” Sam asked. He drained his fourth gin and tonic and signaled for another. Right, because I needed to spend my night preventing him from passing out in a tide pool.
Lauren caught my eye and shrugged. The implication was clear, but that didn’t make it any easier.
