Amelia’s spine goes rigid, and her chin tips up. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. You’re not my mother.”
Natalie flinches as Amelia scores another direct hit with her barbed words.
“Biologically, no I’m not. But I’m the only mother you have. And until you get your act together and grow up, which includes apologizing to your sister and paying her back every cent of her hard-earned money I gave to you, you’re not welcome in my house anymore. Make sure you spend that thousand dollars you just begged me for wisely.”
“You can’t do that!” Amelia screeches.
Natalie uncrosses her arms. “I just did.”
Spinning around in a whirl of red-haired fury, Amelia raises her arm as if she intends to strike Douglass. “This is all your fault!”
Douglass slips out of my hold before I can stop her and does some kind of pivot maneuver, grabs Amelia’s arm, and wrenches it behind her.
“Like I said, there’s nothing you can do to hurt me anymore,” Douglass tells her and shoves her forward.
Amelia recovers quickly and scrambles to her car. Needing to have the last word, she hisses, “You’ll regret that.”
Douglass stands tall. “Fuck you.”
I ignore the squeal of tires and the stench of heated rubber as Amelia peels out of the driveway. I only have eyes for my badass woman.
Palming her face between my hands, I kiss her lips with the reverence I’m feeling.
“You okay?”
The pulse point in her neck is throbbing wildly, but she takes a calming breath and shakes her head in the affirmative. “I’m good.”
“Well, I sure as hell am not,” Natalie says, opening the front door wide. “Come inside. Both of you. And don’t think for a second we aren’t going to have a very long and lengthy talk about what was just said.”
Chapter 40
I meticulously fold Natalie’s soft flannel nightgown and place it in her large rolling suitcase. The “lengthy talk” took over two emotional hours in which she grilled me nonstop and cried—a lot—especially when she saw the still-healing cuts on my arm. I think she told me she was sorry over a hundred times, and I told her just as many times that what happened wasn’t her fault. I could have spoken up and said something. Asked for help. Fought back. I did none of those things. Lies, secrets, and my head buried in the sand became my bedfellows until I knew nothing else.
I only told Natalie so much and would answer her questions with as little detail as possible. I didn’t want to flat-out lie to her about all the stuff Amelia had done, but I also thought it best to keep things minimal and vague. Her doctor said stress could exacerbate Alzheimer’s symptoms. I also didn’t want to be the match that lit Jordan’s fuse. He sat in fuming silence and listened, but his increasing anger as I talked was tangible. When I was done, he said he needed a minute and left. Kissed me on the lips and literally walked out the front door, got in his Jeep and left. That was a little over an hour ago.
Worrying my lip, I pick up my phone from where I placed it on the bed next to Natalie’s suitcase and frown when there’s still no answer from him. I begin typing a text but delete it midway through. I’m not going to be one of those women who constantly checks up on her man, needing to know where he’s at, who he’s with, and what he’s doing at all times. I have to trust that he’ll come back when he’s ready.
Natalie drops her toiletry bag in the open suitcase and curves an arm around me. “He’ll be fine, sweet pea. That boy wears his heart on his sleeve. Just like his mama. It’s hard for men like him to process their feelings.”
He’s not the only one.
I tilt my head to rest it on her frail shoulder. “Is it weird?”
She kisses the crown of my head. “Weird in what way?”
“Me and Jordan.”
I’d asked Harper the same thing. I don’t know why I keep referring to what’s going on between Jordan and me as weird, but unusual, strange, or bizarre don’t fit as well.
He was with Amelia first. He was going to marry her, for pity’s sake. She’s my sister, forever tied to me by blood. Even though Jordan and Amelia are no more, the ghost of her and what they had together will always remain between us, lurking in the shadows of my subconscious like a boogeyman and leaving me with questions I don’t want answered.
Turning me around to grip my shoulders, Natalie looks me dead in the eye. “Short response is no.”
My lips twitch. “Is there a long response?”
As serious as I’ve ever heard her, she replies, “I’ll condense it for you. He’s in love with you.”
Swoosh.There went the millions of butterflies in my stomach. He had said last night that he wasfallingin love with me, notinlove with me. Big difference, at least in my mind, but a distinction I won’t argue over.
