Gordon stared at her openly, brow knitting over his amber eyes. “I meant what I said back there. If it weren’t for you, for what you did, that man would be far worse off than he is.”
“I told you, I—”
“I’m not just talking about the rain,” he said, cutting her off. “You pulled him from the car. It was your fast thinking that got him out of harm’s way. That took guts and heart.”
But it was also her actions that had put him in harm’s way in the first place. She crossed her arms stubbornly. “If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have even been here when that tree fell.”
“You should learn to give yourself a little credit,” he said, watching her. “Bad things happen to good people all the time. And you, Cordelia Bone, are one of the good ones.”
Her eyes met his. She wanted so much to see what he saw in her just then, to believe in her own goodness. Maybe therewassomething dark lurking within her, something that kept manifesting itself in all this havoc, but she’d worked against that impetus today. And she’d won. A man was alive because she willed it with everything she had. She couldn’t give up on herself, just like she hadn’t with Mr. Browning. If she tried hard enough, maybe she could right the wrongs that had occurred. Maybe she could channel what was inside her into something positive. She had to try. In the end, didn’t everything come down to choice? She would choose the good, the right, in herself, in the world, and she would keep choosing it. Even if it killed her.
“I saved this for you,” he said, passing her the clock, fragile like something from the sea.
Despite the wreck and the fire, it was unblemished. She set it on the ornate wicker chair behind her.
“And this,” he said, passing her a folded sheet of paper.
She opened it to find Mr. Browning’s copy of the form he’d given her, her signature scrawled there at the bottom, plain as day. She tucked it in a pocket, coloring. “It’s not how it looks.”
He pressed his soft lips into a hard line. “Not for me to judge,” he told her, but his eyes didn’t clear the rail.
“I needed money.” It fizzed out of her like carbonation. “They’re going to hurt someone I care about, a friend, if I don’t pay off my ex’s debts in the next twenty-two days. And then they’ll come for me.”
His face flashed with anger. “Who?”
Cordelia shook her head. “I don’t know exactly, but I know they’re Mafia. The less I know, the better.”
He dug a fist into his hair and pulled it out again. “And your ex? Where does he fit into all this?”
Cordelia laughed dryly. “He doesn’t. He’s squirmed away and left me with the consequences. I’ve been trying to sell my house in Texas so I could give them the equity, but we found a huge mold outbreak before we could list it. The remediation cost a small fortune that I don’t have. If they place a lien on the house, I can’t sell. And this place seems bound up in more red tape than the tax code. I’m not a thief. I just didn’t see another way.”
He looked at her, eyes peaking like gables. “Your sister know all this?”
“Eustace has had her own downslide recently. There isn’t a lot she can do.” She watched him wrestle with her confession, the implications, for a moment. “You were gone a long while,” she said, changing the subject.
“You worried about me, Bone?” he asked, running fingers through his hair.
She went pink inside, like a shell. Probably outside, too.
He held out his phone, an X-ray image of a human spine flaring to life. “I was at the hospital. Sprinting to that car and dragging him to the shoulder did a number on my back.”
Cordelia caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Your stage injury?”
He popped his knuckles one by one. “It acts up from time to time.”
“That’s how you knew about the man’s spine,” she whispered. “Earlier, when he lost his bladder, you said he could have a spinal injury.”
“I can keep up around here if that’s what you’re worried about,” he told her.
She said, “I’m not worried.”
He smiled. “I’m going to clean up, get a few other things. I’ll be back before nightfall. Don’t wait up for me; I can sleep in the parlor.” He started to walk away, then turned back. “What will you do now?” he asked her. “About your ex’s debts?”
She sagged against the railing of the porch, let something else hold her weight up for a change. “I don’t know.”
Without money from the trust or sales from the estate, she had no other cards to play. She would tell Molly to list the house anyway, but if the mold contractors put a lien against it, they would scare any potential buyers off. “Forget I said anything.”
“Wish I could,” he said, letting his eyes linger on hers a beat too long.
