“No, you’re not.” Sammie’s hands cup my cheeks. He forces our gazes to lock. “I can’t fix whatever it is if you don’t tell me.”
“You can’t fix this anyway, Sammie. You can’t bring my parents back to life. You can’t put me in a time machine and take me back to when I was sixteen and lost both of my parents in the same week.” I climb off his lap and stand. “There’s a reason I don’t talk about them, because I do my best to not think about them. It only brings up horrible memories. It’s why I hate driving into the ranch. It’s why I’ve hated living in that town forever, because they’re everywhere.”
“Are all of your memories with your parents horrible? Did they mistreat you?” He tilts his neck to the side and looks at me.
“What? No, they were great parents.”
“Then why don’t you focus on the happy memories?” he asks.
“Because when I do that, I remember that I’m never going to have any new memories with them, and then I remember why.”
Sammie looks at me without saying anything for what seems like forever before he stands. “What do you want me to do? I can work on your mother’s case without bringing it up to you until I’ve finished and have the proof that you need. Or I can keep you in the loop during the entire process. It’s up to you.”
Do I want to know?
“What exactly are you going to do? To find this so-called proof, Sammie?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“You do know that he’s still a sheriff, the man you intend to question.”
“I’m aware,” Sammie says. “Nothing is going to stop me from getting the truth for you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to trust me. I don’t want you thinking that my family is responsible for what happened.”
“I don’t need to know the details,” I tell him. “I don’t need you to tiptoe around me either.”
“Okay. I will keep the details sparse and make sure those idiots out there don’t say shit that upsets you.”
“Oh god, don’t tell them to not say stuff around me, Sammie. I don’t need them to think I’m some fragile little flower.”
Sammie laughs. “No one is going to mistake you for a fragile flower, Poppy. You’re tough. You have faced adversities at a young age other people would have crumbled from. You didn’t. You are amazing.”
“You have a biased opinion because you like my vagina.” I smile.
“It is a really nice vagina. Want to show me it now? Maybe give me a taste?” He smirks.
Chapter Thirty-One
After stopping at my family’s rental house, I brought Poppy back to her cottage. I saw her face drop the minute we drove under the Kestral Valley ranch sign. And now that we’re standing in her living room, she doesn’t look any happier.
“You know I can always get the pilot to take you back to Vegas. I can have Alfie go with you or one of your cousins? Alice?”
“I’ll go back to LA when you go back to Vegas,” she says.
I smirk. This LA thing isn’t really going to work for me, but that’s not an argument I want to have right now. “Oh, my dad sent you through some spaces to check out.”
“What?”
“For your new spa,” I clarify. “He went through and found some suitable vacancies on The Strip. Also, if you see anywhere that’s not vacant but you love it, we can make it become vacant for you.”
Her eyes widen. “You are not kicking someone else out of their business for me. And I didn’t say I would move my business to Vegas. Plus, I don’t know what fantasy world you’re living in, but I cannot afford a spot on the freaking Las Vegas Strip.”
“First, we agreed to you looking at spots on The Strip. Second, you can afford it because they’re all rent controlled,” I tell her.
“Rent controlled? Really?”
