“Really. Take it or leave it, Aspen.”
Argh. Her mother couldn’t be mature for two seconds.
Aspen turned to Jesse. “I’ll be back in thirty seconds.”
“No.”
Her mother smiled. The evil woman was enjoying this.
Aspen inched closer to him. “Jesse. Please. I need to do this. I’ll be fine. I’ll stay by the door.”
His jaw clicked, and he looked inside the house behind Karen before returning to her. “Door stays unlocked, and you stay right at the entrance.”
She touched his chest. “I will.”
She sucked in a breath. She didn’t like this any more than he did, but she needed to get some answers from her mother.
She stepped inside, and her mother closed and locked the door.
“Call out if you need him?” Her mother scoffed as she headed into the kitchen. “What does he think I’ll do? Hit you over the head with a frying pan and rob you?”
Aspen unlocked the door and turned to her mother, not moving from where she stood. “What are you still doing here, Mom?”
Her mother stopped, back still toward her. “I’m here to seeyou.”
“You haven’t initiated any contact since you broke into Jesse’s house and accused me of stealing your bracelet.” To anyone else, those words would sound insane.
Her mother cleared her throat as she took two mugs from the cupboard. “Doesn’t mean I wasn’tplanningon visiting again. And can you blame me about the bracelet? After the way you were staring at it, I’m surprised you didn’t snatch it off my wrist.”
It was so like her mother to not take responsibility. “Mom, I need to ask you something, and I need you to look at me when I do.”
Her mother was good at lying, but her eyes usually gave her away.
Slowly, her mother turned. “What?”
“Did you give Dylan my address here in Amber Ridge?”
Her features didn’t change at all. In fact, for a moment, she remained so perfectly still she was like a statue.
“Yes.”
Aspen’s stomach dropped. And the reaction was stupid. She’dknownit was her mother—she was the only one Aspen had given her address to. But even after everything her mother had done to her, it still hurt. It always hurt.
“Why?”
“Because he asked for it.”
That was it? He asked for it, so she gave it to him? God, she felt like throwing her head into a brick wall, she was so frustrated. “I told you that I left to get away from him. I told you our relationship wasn’t healthy.”
“What did you want me to do?”
“Say no! Protect your child!”
“Protect you from what? He’s a nice guy. I was doing you a favor.”
Anger darkened the room around her. “Hehitme. Shocking, isn’t it? He also used to grab me so tightly, I’d have bruises for days. And when I left him, he hit me so hard, I fell into the coffee table and it broke.”
Her mother’s brows flickered. “Come on, Aspen. Is that true? I know you have a tendency to make things up, and I don’t want your overactive imagination to get that boy into trouble.”
