“You’re not leaving,” Chassie said over me, this aimed at Hamish.
His face got soft (but I could tell he was still pissed…and hurt). “You’re sweet, lassie, but?—”
“You’re not leaving!” she shrieked in his face.
All the air left the room, taking with it our ability to breathe.
Chassie stepped further into the room and kept screeching.
“I got raped!” She threw the beautiful bouquet to the floor and pounded her chest. “Me!”
I vaguely noted the extremes of Hamish’s flinch right before his gaze raced to Tempie.
“What, Temperance?” Chassie demanded. “What?” she screamed. “You’re going to put your life on hold forever just to be sure I’m okay?”
“Dearest,” Tempie whispered.
Chassie shot forward at the waist and shouted, “I won’t have it!”
“Lovely, let’s go somewhere and talk,” Prue urged Chastity.
“No!” Chassie yelled. “Chelsea was right. I’m a weight. A weight both of you”—she jabbed fingers at Tempie and Battle—“have been carrying for too long.”
“What the fuck?” Battle growled low.
I gave him a Later! look.
“Not anymore!” Chassie was still yelling. “Vivi comes to this house, and she’s sweet, and she’s funny, and she doesn’t take Battie’s shit, or your shit, Tempie,” she aimed that at her sister. “Then, one day, she’s flirting and playing cards, and she says, ‘Oh yes, my mom died a year ago.’ And you could tell by the ache in her voice it kills her that her mum is gone, but she keeps going. I saw it. I felt it. I understood what I’d done. So now you, all three of you”—she jabbed her finger again, this time including Prue—“are off duty.”
“You’ve been—” Tempie tried.
“I know what I’ve been, Tempie,” Chassie snapped. “I’m not that anymore. I figured it out. He took everything from me. Everything. My boyfriend. My shop. My life in Bath. My strength. My courage. He took everything, except the three of you. And I let him.”
Tempie started an approach, beseeching, “Please don’t look at it that way, darling.”
“How should I look at it, Tempie? It happened. I let it. And now I’m going to stop letting it. Chelsea was right. But I’ve been watching Vivi and that’s how I’m going to be. Life punches you in the teeth. You bleed, wipe away the mess and keep going. I’m not going to let him scare me anymore. I’m not going to let him take any more from me. And I sure as fuck am not going to let him take any more from you.”
“You go, Chassie,” I whispered encouragingly.
She shot me a timid look then pulled it together and tossed her chaotic curls.
She locked eyes with Tempie. “So Hamish is here because you want him here. You’re just scared I’m going to worry that Battie found Vivi, and you have Hamish, and Prue will become a big-time author, and I’ll be alone. Well, I know I’m never alone. I know I’ll never be alone. Prue can take me with her on her book tours, and Prue’s good company. That will make me happy. But however it happens, I’m going to get on with my life. I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do, but that’s for me. It is not for you. All I know I am going to do is get out of the way of your life.”
No one said anything.
And then Tempie did.
“You were our wee china doll.”
Oh God.
Her voice was an open wound.
“Everybody out,” Battle ordered, his gaze glued to Hamish.
I wasn’t about to move, at least not toward the door.
But I saw Hamish, his handsome face a mask of anguish for Chassie, also for his woman, heading toward Tempie.
