But no matter how hard she’d been, how much of that inner toughness her father had taught her as a girl that she’d relied on, the world had beaten her.
Time and again.
She’d lost babies.She’d lost her husband.She’d failed at saving everyone.Everyone.
It never seemed to stop.Losing her voice had helped.She’d been left alone for full years.A ghost story to anyone who was curious.
No one had ever known what had been held over her head.No one had ever known all the secrets she held tight to her chest.The deal she had made to protect the people she loved.
Jill thought the truth would set them free.Glenda was certain the truth would end everything.
It always did.
She’d told the truth about her mother with another man—and never saw the woman who’d birthed her ever again.Daddy had barred her from their house.Maybe rightfully so, but it hadn’t made it any easier growing up in a house full of men without a mother.
She’d told the truth about the boss at the factory who’d liked to put his hands where they didn’t belong.She’d lost that job while Gerald had been off fighting for his life.
She’d told the truth to that doctor about Gerald’s nightmares, his shakes, his waves of anger.They’d committed him for nearly a year before she’d been able to tell Gerald what he needed to do to convince everyone he was okay.
Because he hadn’t been okay in that hospital, but he’d been okay at home.Okay, except when he went hunting with those two assholes.She hadn’t been the least bit sorry to find out that Charles Hayes had died.
But the way it had happened…
Well, that was when she’d stopped telling the truth.First, to keep her husband safe.Then when he’d died.
The truth had died with him.She hadn’t just made that deal with Daryl Everly.She’d made it with herself abouteverything.For Gerald.For her son.
And yes, for herself.
She was not an unselfish woman.If she were, she would have sent Jill away the moment that girl had shown up in her hospital room three years ago.She would have moved to Boston like her son wanted and left all this behind.
But allthiswas who she was, and the truth was she’d liked having her granddaughter here.She’d liked it more than she’d been smart.She’d thought the secrets would protect them.The silence would protect them.
Secrets and finding her words slowly taken from her by some unknown force inside her own mind had been good enough for these twenty-five-some years.Maybe it hadn’t kept Marie alive forever, but longer.Long enough to get those boys old enough, strong enough to survive everything Benjamin Bennet would do to them.
Maybe it had somehow stolen her voice in ways she couldn’t explain even to herself, but she’d found it when it had mattered most to finally punish Benjamin Bennet.
With the truth.
She shoved that thought away.The truth wasn’t forher.Maybe Gerald was gone, but she wouldn’t let Everly ruin Gerald’s name with whatever he was up to.She wouldn’t ruin his memory because of this man.
She’d rather die.At least then Daryl Everly would finally get what he deserved.She had no doubt Cal Bennet or one of his brothers would make sure of it.
Because if Daryl killed her, he’d finally pay.
She hadn’t been able to make him pay for killing Gerald—even if he claimed it was self-defense—without revealing Gerald’s secrets.
And Gerald had already been dead.
But she wasn’t.Cal Bennet wasn’t.
Glenda opened her mouth to tell Everly to leave Cal, to keep going with her.Cal still didn’t know enough to implicate anyone, and even if he did, Everly’s plan seemed to be to disappear.So, they’d let him.
But that tightness in her chest took its hold.Even opening her mouth, she couldn’t force out a word, just a kind of strangled noise.Her grip on Cal tightened.
“I don’t know who you’re trying to protect, Glenda,” Cal whispered.“But this isn’t the way to do it.”
Cal didn’t understand.She’d been meant to protect him.She’dpromisedMarie.
