“I know you didn’tmansplainmy current situation, Sparky,” I fume at him. “I know that after all this time, you wouldn’t do that to me.”
He’s beside me in the next heartbeat. “You scared the shit out of your sister. And me, for that matter. The time for political correctness is gone! What the fuck are you doing out here, in the open.”
I push against his chest.
Damn it! It’s like reinforced concrete.
“I needed time to think about what was going on!”
“You couldn’t think within the secure walls of Legacy Lakes?”
“No! Everyone is in my goddamn business! Everyone wants to know where I am, what I’m doing, where I’m going! I’m 45 years old, for chrissakes! I don’t need a fucking babysitter!”
Aaron motions around the clearing. “All evidence to the contrary.”
I motion around the cleaning. “There’s nobody here! No one knows about this place but you. So, you can take your concern and shove it up your ass. I don’t need this from you. I’ve got enough on my plate right now.”
I stomp away to the nearby trail.
Aaron stalks alongside me. “Oh, like R.M.?”
I whirl around and poke him in the chest. “You don’t fucking know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” Aaron grabs my finger in his fist. “I’m an expert in being lied to, Camellia. I can spot the lies from a mile away. The woman I married lied - to my face - on a daily basis about what she was doing and who she was doing it with - for twenty years. She cheated on me at every turn, then gaslighted me into thinking I caused her behavior. She’s a narcissist through and through. And there have been times when I questioned whether my daughters were my blood.”
I suck in a breath and stand back. “What?”
He shakes his head. “Shit. Never mind. Forget I said that.”
I place my hand on his arm. “Did you test them?”
“It doesn’t matter what the DNA says. They’re my girls. Mine.”
My heart clenches with the declaration. That’s such an Aaron thing to say in this situation. A lead weight settles in my stomach.
“I can’t stand lying, Camellia,” Aaron continues. “She may not have been the love of my life, but I was committed to my marriage until I couldn’t take it anymore. I gave her so many chances to come clean, and she wouldn’t do it. The lying. The cheating. It was all more important to her than her family.”
I don’t know what else to say to that. I need time to think. To clear my head.
I spin around to head back down the trail when the tip of my shoe catches on something, and I’m suddenly yanked back into a pair of strong arms.
An explosion rocks the trail where I was just standing, sending dirt, rocks, and all sorts of detritus into the air and back down onto the two of us.
My ears ring from the blast.
I think I hear Aaron yelling into his phone for the bomb squad and rescue units.
Dirt stings my eyes. I try to wipe it away.
Aaron grabs my hands and screams in my face. “Don’t rub your eyes!”
I can barely hear him. I yell back. “Why?”
“You might scratch your cornea,” Aaron screams again. “Crews are on the way. Stay put. Don’t move. We don’t want to set anything else off.”
My eyes blur as the tears fight against the grit. I survey the trail and surrounding area. Whoever set up the tripwire might still be here. I reach for my ankle holsters but remember I didn’t bring any weapons with me.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”
Well, at least now I won’t have to stew in the shitty mess that is my personal life.
It’s hard to worry about things like that when a domestic terrorist has you in his crosshairs.
Perspective, my friends. Perspective.
