And he couldn’t say a word. He was speechless from just imagining how that must have hurt.
“She’s one to talk, right, Eli? Getting knocked up and no one knows who the daddy is and she won’t say. I for one would never judge a person for that. Look at myownsister, Michelle. But everyone knows the Harwoods. ‘Good people.’ That’s what they all say. People divide you up like that, don’t they, early on? Good people and bad people. And that’s all you get to be, forever. Unless you leave Hellcat Canyon. And if you can’t leave, then you’re kinda fucked.”
He sat with this a moment, thinking it through. She wasn’t, unfortunately, completely wrong.
“You want my opinion?” he said finally.
“Sure,” she said dryly. “Lay it on me, Eli.”
“Okay,” he began. “Maybe Eden’s extra protective of her little girlbecauseshe’s a single mom. She’s got a lot to lose now. I think I have a sense for what it was like for my mom when my dad died and there was just me and my sister and her. Your mom probably felt the same way when your dad died, when he was gone. We don’t know what kind of hurts are in Eden’s past because she isn’t telling. And maybe she feels likeshewas a bad girl. Like she made her mistakes. None of us gets a roadmap when we’re born. Maybe it all feels precarious to her, and... I don’t know what I’m saying. I guess I’m mostly saying I’m sorry she hurt you, Glory, and I wish she hadn’t.”
Glory was clearly mulling this. And then she sighed.
“I can kind of see it,” she said finally, softly. “I might have done the same thing, if Annelise was my little girl. It’s just Eden got me on a bad day in a bad week. But hell, maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m just a late bloomer and the badness will come out later, after husband number six or jail term three.”
“You better get started on both. You’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
She snorted.
“You want to know what I think, Glory? None of that will ever happen to you. Ever. You’ve been surrounded your whole life by people who indulged every impulse they ever had, whether it was good or bad or smart or stupid. They don’t stop to think about how consequences ripple out, like when a rock is chucked into the Whiskey Creek. Or how it might affect you. But you... you think things through.”
That was risky. She had a huge blind spot when it came to her family, but he just couldn’t seem to give up trying to show her what was in it.
She’d frozen as if he’d caught her in the act of something.
And then all at once something occurred to him. “Wait... that’s why you’re still here, isn’t it? Who needs the money?”
He was furious on her behalf but he did a brilliant job of not showing it.
She didn’t answer for a moment. “I gave the money I saved to Mom. She needed help with the mortgage. Because...”
He groaned and closed his eyes. Fucking Jonah. Jonah must have been paying the mortgage. How could someone they both loved, and who loved them,dosomething like that?
“Good God, Glory,” he said weakly.
If he’d known that would happen to her, would he have done it any other way?
He couldn’t speak. He probably didn’t know the answer.
“Hey, Eli?” she whispered.
“Yeah?”
“What doyouthink of thelikesof me?” She sounded half teasing, half tentative. “Do you think I’m a bad girl?”
“Are you asking me a serious question?”
“Kinda. No. I mean. Yes. Okay, yes I am. I’m asking you a serious question. Though I might be a little drunk,” she half warned, half explained, again, in the manner of drunk people since time immemorial.
“Hmmm... What do I think of the likes of you... I think someone had to be the linchpin in your family and you decided that person was going to be you. But you took that on and you held it together andthatis who you are. And I think, sometimes, you like it when people think you’re bad. Because that way they can’t get to you. The way roses like to think they’re badass for growing thorns, when really... they’re fragile. But they’re always worth risking a little bloodshed. And they can’t hurt you if you know how to handle them. Or... or... where to touch them.”
She’d gone so still it was as though she’d stopped breathing. And then she turned to him.
And her expression about yanked his heart right out of his chest like a lasso.
He surreptitiously drew in a long, long breath to replace the one she’d just stolen.
Suddenly, swiftly, gracefully, she slid into his lap, straddling him, and looped her arms around his neck.
