Scrunching up my nose, I look up at her. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I asked if your mother ever mentioned me.” Marianne’s eyebrows furrow. “Marianne McAlister?”
I shake my head. It isn’t a lie. Mother never talked about her life before Portland. Not once. That makes it easy for me to act is if I’ve never heard anything about her. Marianne seems to buy it, but the glint in Nan’s eyes tells me she hasn’t bought my bullshit.
Marianne’s face falls, and a small bit of guilt overwhelms me.
“I didn’t know about…” Marianne visibly swallows before giving her head a small shake and pasting a fake smile on her painted lips.
“You can go now, Marianne.” Nan dismisses her with a wave of her hand as she approaches the side of the bed with the clothes.
“I can help,” the brunette insists, her smile stretching even wider. “I’ll…”
“No,” Nan bites out without offering further explanation.
Marianne’s smile slips into a scowl before it is once again replaced by what can only be described as a Malibu Barbie smile. Fake and plastic.
“Wel, if you ever want to know anything about her, just come find me. I have all kinds of juicy stories I can tell you.”
I paste on a smile and nod my head in fake enthusiasm. I don’t trust her. There is a dark gleam in her eye that causes my body to stiffen and my heart to race as she gives me another once-over before striding from the room, her head held high as if she is some noble lady from court. I’ve seen that look before, and it is never good.
“Watch yourself around her,” Nan murmurs in warning as she takes the tray of finished food from my lap.
“You don’t trust her?” I tilt my head a bit, watching her reaction. Nan snorts.
“She may have been your mother’s best friend, but that woman has always had an agenda.” She rolls back the comforter and holds her hand out to me. “You recognized her,an leanbh, and didn’t say a word. Tells me you don’t trust her either.”
I shrug a shoulder without answering. She may be my grandmother, but that doesn’t mean she automatically has my trust, either. I’ve been burned before, and I won’t let that happen again. My gut tells me I can lean on her, but my brain hasn’t caught up with that. It’s still weary, even of family.
“We can talk more about that while you get in the shower.”
Carefully, I slide off the bed with her help, the bite of pain a grim reminder of my mortality. I willingly threw myself in front of a bullet for Seamus, a brother I didn’t even know, who came to rescue me without knowing me either.
That means something.
I lost the one I called sister. There was no stopping her death, and I have no idea where the hell Kenzi is or if she is okay. There is no way in hell I wasn’t going to take that bullet. That meant losing another member of my family, one whose eyes lit up when he saw me.
Like I was something special.
Something previous.
Even Matthias never looked at me that way before. His gaze was full of lust and desire, yes. But he never stared at me like he couldn’t live without me.
Because he could.
My jaw trembles as Nan helps me out of my borrowed button-down shirt. The woman in the mirror is nearly unrecognizable. Her long red hair is dull, covered in dust, a mattof knots on top of her head. Dark bruises cover her from head to toe, varying from deep purple to jaundice yellow. She is thinner; her curves lessened ribs showing, face gaunt. The brightness in her emerald eyes are gone, replaced by a wary darkness that has crept in.
All of this damage caused in only a few weeks.
A white bandage with blood just barely seeping through covers the right side of her abdomen just below her breast.
This can’t be me.
“It’s all right,an leabh,” Nan’s voice is low and soothing in my ear. “It’s merely a graze and the rest will heal in time. There’s no need to cry.”
Cry?
Who is crying? Me?
