She flinched. She’d just told her mother the most painful things that had ever happened to her…and she didn’t believe her. “You think I’d lie about something like that?”
“I think you like attention.”
She blinked. Was this woman really her mother? The woman who was supposed to love her more than anyone else in the world? “What is wrong with you?”
“Excuse me?”
“I just told you that someoneassaultedme, and you tell me that I like attention?”
“Aspen, I don’t have the energy for your drama today. You asked me a question, and I answered it. Is there anything else?”
There was no point. Her mother would never change, and at some stage, Aspen needed to accept that. “No. That’s all. I won’t be visiting again. And I certainly won’t be sharing information about my life with you ever again. Stay as long as you want, but leave me alone.”
She turned and took a step toward the door when a sweater hanging over a chair caught her attention. She frowned, and her fingers shook as she lifted it. Immediately, she dropped it as she stumbled back.
It was his…the sweater was Dylan’s. And it was also the same one she’d seen in the grocery store the other day.
She turned back to her mother, disbelief sending tingles through her limbs. “This is Dylan’s.”
Her mother pursed her lips but remained silent.
“This sweater is Dylan’s! Is he here?”
The front door flew open and Jesse stormed inside, Glock in hand.
Her mother gasped and threw a hand over her chest. “What on earth—”
“Is Dylan here?” Jesse shouted, repeating Aspen’s question.
“Get out!”
Jesse ignored her mother and moved through the cabin, opening doors, checking every inch of the space.
Her mother hurried behind him. “What the hell are you doing? You have no right to be in here!”
Her mother grabbed his arm and he spun, towering over her. “He’s a wanted man, and keeping him hidden will see you arrested.”
Her mother’s face paled. “What are you—”
“Is he here, Karen?”
She jumped at Jesse’s shouted words, and it took her a few seconds to respond. “He was. He’s not anymore. The second your little deputy fixed the Wi-Fi router, he left. He didn’t want to be caught on camera.”
Aspen’s jaw dropped. “You’ve been living with him?”
“Yes. So?”
Why did it keep hurting? “I can’t be around you.”
She spun and walked out of the house because she knew if she stayed a second longer, she would cry or scream or do something she couldn’t take back.
Jesse watchedAspen as she leaned against the counter at The Tea House and spoke to Mrs. Gerald. The second they’d left her mother’s rental, this was where she’d wanted to come, and Jesse could see why.
She was smiling again. A big smile that lifted the corners of her lips and created little lines beside her eyes. She’d built a relationship with the older café owner. Which was good. She needed people in her life who treated her well. She certainly deserved a hell of a lot more than her mother gave her.
His biceps flexed at the memory of what she’d said to Aspen. At the way she hadn’t even cared that she’d been living with the man who’d hurt her daughter.
What the hell was wrong with that woman?
