Page 17 of Late Harvest

“I know the feeling.”

Once again, Lila’s kind smile eased Remy’s discomfort. She opened her mouth to suggest doing this again—it had proven unexpectedly pleasant—but then pressed her lips together to prevent the unexpected utterance.

Briefly closing her eyes, she swallowed past a lump of nerves. Good grief, she was forty-seven, not fourteen. But inside, she was that scared, skittish girl all over again, breaking through her trepidation to accept the friendship of the most beautiful human she’d ever met.

And somewhere, in the deep recesses of Remy’s heart, she heard that much-loved, dearly missed voice nudge her through the abyss of fear where she’d lived for so long.

Do it, Arabella.

I can’t. Not after what happened to you. I won’t.

You can. And you will. Please? For me?

Clearing the tears that clogged her throat. Remy examined her glass, inhaled a deep breath…

And took a leap of friendship.

“Would you—” she began on a croak and started again. “Maybe we could do this again?”

A bright smile broke across Lila’s face. “Yes. I’d love that, Doc. Red wine. And maybe some food next time.”

Remy laughed. “Yes. A red wine supper club.”

“Red Wine Supper Club,” Lila repeated, grinning even wider. “I love it.”

Chapter Seven

No shit it’s hard…If it were easy, any miserable bitch would be doing it too.

Boss the fuck up, dammit.

—From Remy’s Badass Bitch Affirmations jar

Remy

Remy checked her reflection in the rearview mirror, cringing at what she saw. She’d tossed and turned all night, battling a headache from too little food and too much wine.

But those were just convenient scapegoats. The real blame lay with a certain ridiculously attractive movie star. It was beyond out of character, as well as patently immature of her, to be so fixated on a man—much less one who went through insanely gorgeous younger women like some people went through tissues. Use ‘em, dispose of ‘em, get another.

So why was she so damn preoccupied with Sebastian Wheatley? Between the wine, the headache, and him, she’d barely slept three hours.

“Fucking get it together, Remy. You have people who need you.” As always, speaking aloud to herself helped shake her out of her abstraction.

Running a hand through her poker-straight long bob, Remy noted she was due to touch up her roots. She didn’t have much gray, but was vain enough to want the threads that were present routinely covered. Frowning in the harsh glare of the morning sun and the visor light, she contemplated slapping on more of her foundation—the only makeup she generally wore, and even that had been a more recent concession to age. She fingered her bag, where she kept a compact and flavored lip balm.

Screw it.

The dark circles of sleepless nights were getting harder to cover as she aged. She wondered if part of that was hereditary, as well as her early menopause. No way to ever know. Her mother was barely thirty-five when she died, and Remy had never met her grandmother. Likely, that ogre was long gone, but Remy had never bothered to search for an obituary online. That woman had been disdainful when her unmarried, seventeen-year-old daughter began a relationship with a guy from the wrong side of the tracks. And when Remy’s mother got knocked up? Dearest Granny immediately threatened to disown her if she kept the baby.

And so it came to be. Remy grew up with just her useless mother and her pathetic excuse for a father. No siblings. No cousins. No aunts, uncles, or extended family. Just a drug-addicted, violent sperm donor and an alcoholic mother who was too busy being her partner’s punching bag and then dramatically forgiving him—repeat ad nauseum—to be much of a presence in Remy’s life. Forget caring for her and nurturing her and loving her. Mostly they ignored her, often leaving her alone in the shabby, rodent- and roach-infested apartment they shared. Yay for quality genes.

Her father had never hit Remy. But he was still every inch an abusive parent. From her earliest memories of him until the day he died when she was fifteen, he used nasty, hurtful words as cudgels—leaving interior damage that took much longer to heal than a broken bone. He reserved his fists, and sometimes his kicks, for her mother. Don Torres would get high on crack, drunk on cheap alcohol that he’d probably stolen, and then take his rage out on the woman he never bothered to marry.

Several times, her mother—usually at the behest of cops or social services—accepted a placement at a nearby shelter. When she was young, Remy was consumed with guilt. Those times when Don was particularly violent were horrific, but they also meant one or two weeks in the shelter. Maybe a few days more. Where Remy would have a decent mattress, sheets on the bed, and a bland but sufficient meal to fill her stomach. Peace to do her homework.

Shelters were her safe harbor and salvation. And every time her mother left to return to one of their revolving doors of revolting apartments, declaring that her man had changed, Remy withered a little inside.

It was only through the grace of the various shelter employees and volunteers, along with one very special family who finally filled a gaping hole in Remy’s life, that she survived to adulthood.