“Hey.” He leans against the workbench now painted a slate gray. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. Are you taking Millie to baseball today?”
He’s silent for a moment. “Yeah. I wanted to talk to you first though. It’s about Millie. About you, too.”
My heart kicks up speed and dread washes over me. This is it. This is the conversation I’ve been afraid of since the moment Xan set eyes on Millie.
I hop up onto the workbench, gripping the edges so tight my fingers begin to cramp. “What’s up?”
I try to sound calm, but my voice shakes a little.
“I talked to the therapist this week. Twice. She’s going to sign my release back to work.”
“That’s great.”
His lips press together, and he nods, but his gaze is long and distant.
“Things are going to change, now that summer’s almost over. Your dad is in a walking cast now. We’re going to catch whoever is threatening you. I’m back at work and this place is almost ready for sale. School starts in a few weeks.”
“What are you saying, Xan?” I ask, wanting to get it out there.
“I’m not saying anything. I’m asking. When are you planning on leaving?” His voice hardens a little and a spike of anger pierces me.
“I don’t know. I told you I wasn’t going to take her away from you.”
“But you’ll take her away from Raston,” he says and it’s not a question. We both know it. “And then what? My job is most active in the summer. I just see her at Christmas and Easter?”
“Why are you being like this?” I ask and he turns to me. Now I see it. All I heard was his tension and aggressive accusations. When I see him I see the truth. His fear melts my anger. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m confused and overwhelmed right now. All I know is I can’t live here.”
“Why?” He asks.
“Because.”
“Not good enough. Why can’t you be here, Briggs?”
He wants me to say it.
Because you’re here. Because I can’t live in a place you live without being with you.
“I want us to be a family,” he says, and it shocks me backward. “I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay here. I want to be with you.”
“Xan,” I plead.
“Shunta asked me what I wanted. What I truly wanted if everything I felt obligated to take care of was magically fixed. It’s you and Millie. I don’t want you to change your life, I would never ask you to do that. I can meet you somewhere in the middle. I can travel in the winters; you can stay here in the summers. Millie can play on a team. She can have friends.”
I gaze through the skylight ceilings and blink back the emotion that builds up inside me. Of course, I’ve thought of all this. From the moment my lips touched his I’ve been on a constant loop.
“We’ve already tried rearranging our lives for each other. It didn’t work out.”
“But this time no one is standing in our way. We’re not kids anymore.” His face is hopeful. “Just think about it, okay? Promise you’ll at least think about it.”
I nod as Millie skips into the studio with her glove tucked under her arm. Her smile falls the second she enters the room, sensing the tension.
“Hey, Sweetheart,” I say jumping down and helping her with her hat, threading the ponytail through the hole in the back.
“You okay, Mom?” She asks and I hug her tight. Xan catches my eye and I nod. I’ll think about it.
I lean back and cup her cheeks in my hands. “I’m great. You go have fun at practice. When you get home, I have something I want to run by you.”
“Okay,” she says and grabs Xan by the wrist. “Come on. I don’t want to be late.”
He laughs, allowing himself to be dragged from the studio.
Thank you, he mouths, and I wrap my arms around my middle.
Being with him again scares me. Being a family scares me. But I owe it to Millie to ask her what she wants.
#
When Dad gets home from work, I can hear his walking cast thud on the hardwood, but I continue to stare out the window at the thick tree line. Part of me wished I could walk into the shadows and disappear.
“You okay?” Dad asks and flops down on the couch red faced with a sheen of sweat on his brow.
“Xan wants to be a family.” The words fall out, but Dad doesn’t seem shocked by it.
“I think that’s what he’s wanted since the day he met Millie.” The tone suggests I’m the only idiot who hasn’t figured that out yet.
“We can’t be together because we have a kid,” I snap. That’s a terrible reason. If it didn’t work, it would crush Millie.
Dad doesn’t answer, just grabs the stick from the coffee table and shoves it down his cast to sooth his itching skin.
I study my father then. A quiet and stubborn man who keeps his emotions to himself. I never remember him doing anything extravagant for mom, no grand romantic gestures, no sweet slow dances in the kitchen, no flowers.
No passion filled love notes. That was Jason Ryker.
“Did you know about Mom and Mr Ryker?” This question does startle him, and he scowls for a moment before nodding.
“I always knew that your mother was madly in love with someone else when we first started dating.”
“But you didn’t know it was him?”
“Nope. She never spoke of her past in specifics, only generals. It wasn’t until you and Xan started dating and her strict disapproval that I began to suspect. Once I knew it was so obvious.”
“How so?”
“The way she looked at him. She pitied him I thought, but I think she was longing for who he used to be.”
“Did you know him when you were younger?”
“Jason didn’t used to be like...Jason. He was a good kid. A lot like Xan. Soulful and hardworking but that boy had demons and he looked to God to fix them but turned to alcohol to feed them. He spiraled pretty slowly into what he is now.”
My heart aches for my mother, and somewhere deep inside I feel a small pang of sadness for Jason. Most of all this entire conversation is fanning the flames of something I’ve always worried but never had the guts to say.
“What if Xan is headed on the same path?” Worry laces my voice.
“I used to think so. He has a dark angry streak like his dad. But the difference between them is Xan is trying. Jason turned to God and booze. Xan turned to you and councilors. You know he asked me before he talked to you.”
“What?”
Dad nods. “Yeah. A couple days ago. He told me he wanted to ask you to be a family.”
“What is this 1865? Did you give him a cow with your blessing?” I sit up straighter, not knowing how I feel about the men in my life making decisions for me.
Dad laughs. “I had to part with two cows and a goat. You know how hard it is to marry off a girl over 25 with a child?”
I lean across the coffee table and swat him with a magazine, but I can’t stop the laugh.
“It had nothing to do with my blessing, Brigitte. He knows how I’ve felt about you two in the past. He was trying to make amends with me. He was trying. I’m still not sure if I like him. But no one can argue the man’s dedication to something once he sets his mind to it.”
I slouch back into my chair. His dedication to me. And now to Millie.
The buzz of my cellphone distracts me, and I scoop it up.
“Hey Leslie,” I say and for a moment it’s quiet on the other line except for a low hollow breath. “Hello?”
My heart rate spikes and then she speaks. “Hi, Briggs? Hi. Sorry. I’m doing two things at once here.” She laughs her shrill laugh.
“That’s okay. What’s up?”
“I wanted to talk to you about your numbers. They’re dropping. Significantly right across the board. Followers fluctuate of course but this is now translating to bad reviews and more nasty emails than usual.”
I sigh and stand, moving to the kitchen. D
ad eyes me suspiciously as he does every time my phone rings or I breath too heavily. He’s been trying to run that partial plate from the car that ran me off the road and had his buddy from the station came do an overhaul on the motorhome looking for clues.
“Hang on, Leslie.” I lower my phone and with a few swipes of my thumb I’m in Instagram and it’s a ghost town. Usually my notifications go bananas when I log in but only a few this time, mostly angry comments on my last post which was two weeks ago. I haven’t gone two weeks without offering something ever. My DMs are filled with where are you’s and how dare you’s and passive aggressive demands for my attention disguised as concern.
As I scroll my anxiety spikes. This break has been nice but what will I do if I don’t have Wild & Free Designs? This craft has saved me, given me purpose, and I’ve abandoned it.
My mother’s voice bubbles through my mind like water over rocks.
You’ve lost yourself in him. Any time he’s around you abandon yourself and become whatever he wants you to be. When you have him you have nothing else. It scares me, Brigitte. It terrifies me to watch you lose everything to gain him.
And I’m doing it again.
A new message pops into my inbox and those first two bold words stop my heart.
“Briggs? Are you there?” Leslie’s soft voice sounds.
“I have to go. I’ll call you back.” Fear saturates my voice as I hang up on Leslie and click on the new message.
It’s a picture of Millie playing baseball in the Raston field.
She’s next
Next to the words are 4 small emojis.
Flames.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
BRIGGS
I don’t shut the door behind me or answer the shouts of my father as I sprint to his truck, knowing he leaves the keys in it.
Metal screeches, engine roars, and gravel spits everywhere as the box of the truck fishtails down the driveway.
Everything is in crystal clear focus. Each color that blurs past my window is vivid and bright. Each beat of my heart sounds like an old war drum. Every speck of dust that swirls through the old truck tickles my nose but of everything I can sense I can only think about her.
Whoever is doing this to me knows who I am. They know where I am. And they know how to get to me.
The picture is seared into my memory. Millie is on the field, her smile wide, her face bright and happy as she’s throwing the ball. She’s completely oblivious that someone is watching her. Photographing her.
Bile rises in my throat and I choke it down.
I get to the ball diamond in record time and the tires screech as I slam the breaks. It’s early in park when I jump out and sprint to the field. My neck strains as I whip my gaze across the crowd. The field.
I don’t see her.
Tears burn my eyes. People are noticing me now.
“Millie?” I call out, nothing but her is on my radar at all. Where is she?
I run right out into the field, young ball players in the middle of switching innings. One group coming onto the field the other tucking themselves in the dugout.
I scream her name this time, completely disconnected from my body.
“Mom?” Her small voice pushes through and everything comes rushing back into me.
She’s on the bench, horror splayed across her features. She’s silently pleading with her friends as I run at her and yank her off the bench.
“Mom what’s wrong?” Her cheeks are flaring pink as I inspect her face for signs of damage.
“We have to go,” I say and yank her forward. She just keeps saying mom. She resists my efforts and tears begin to trail down my cheeks. Hot and wet and completely foreign.
“Millie, now! Get in the truck.” I point and she sees I’m crying which snaps her into action.
Xan is there now, grabbing my shoulders and keeping me here. Keeping me stuck. I should have been out of here by now. I should have left the moment my dad got his walking cast.
“What’s going on, Briggs?” He holds my shoulders and hunches to catch my eye.
I wiggle free without saying anything and run after Millie. He follows me.
Once we’re close to the truck and further away from the crowd of shocked staring faces, he grabs my wrist and forces me to stop.
“Stop. Talk to me. Is someone threatening you again?”
I watch the ground. Millie is now in the truck, slouched so low with mortification emanating from her.
“I shouldn’t be here.”
“You’re right, you shouldn’t.” Pris steps up beside her brother with crossed arms and a dark glare. “Let her go Xan. She can go ruin someone else’s life for a change.”
My tears fall harder, faster. I tug my arm free and he lets go easily. Watching me as I hop in the truck and speed away.
#
“Mom, please,” Millie sobs into her pillow as I frantically toss clothes into a duffel bag. I’m running on pure adrenaline and the only thing I need to do is get out. I’ll shut down my business. Disappear.
“We have to go,” I say.
“Why?” Millie cries and I shake my head. I can’t tell my ten-year-old that someone threatened her. That someone is stalking her with the intent to hurt her. To hurt me by hurting her.
All I ever wanted was to protect her. All I want is to protect her.
“We have to, Emilia.” I use the stern mom voice. She may not understand but this is what’s best. There’s no way the police can track this person down. I gave them the guy’s name I dated. The partial license plate. All the details of the phone calls and threats. They have nothing.
I will not take a chance and wait around here like a sitting duck.
Millie lashes out at me, yanking the clothes from my hands and hurling them across the room. She kicks the duffel bag off the bed and glares at me.
“I hate you,” she whispers, the words unnatural on her tongue. She’s never said anything like this to me before.
“Millie,” I try, and she jumps off the bed.
“You ruin everything!” She screams at me and sprints down the hall her footsteps fast and loud. I flinch when the door slams. Out the window I see her sprint across the yard, climb the ladder to the treehouse and then pull it up behind her.
Nothing has ever made me feel so awful to the core of my existence before. No words have ever made me feel so small than hearing my own child tell me she hates me. That I’m ruining her life.
Just like Pris said.
Realization sits hard on my chest and I gasp with the sudden understanding.
“Dad!” I call bursting through the bedroom door and running straight into him. He steadies me and I know he’s been standing outside the door this whole time.
“I know who it is,” I say, and he takes a moment before he catches on.
“The person threatening you?”
“Yes,” I say with a rush of exhilaration, sliding my phone from my back pocket. There are six missed calls from Xan. Dad and I hunch over my phone as I scroll through years of social media posts to the one I’d almost forgotten about. Dad stares at the image of a rolling river and confusion urges me to explain.
“It’s a call out post. I made this post a year and a half ago about a copycat designer. There was a company that popped up called Rugged & Roam. They ripped off my name, they used my business model, they completely rode my coat tails and I called them out for it after I realized that they were also lying.”
“Lying about what?” Dad is still clearly confused.
“I source my jewelry from nature. I trek all over the damn countryside to gather pebbles and wood and anything else that I can source in an ethical way to make my jewelry. Some of my customers came to me concerned about this person and their shitty quality product and how they were pretending to be me. I wrote this post.”
I hold the phone out for Dad to read.
Hey explorers, it’s been brought to my attention that my products are so sought after that I have copycats. Yay, me.
Looks like I’ve made it.
But one copycat concerns me more than others because the lies of @ruggedandroam are not only making me look bad, but taking advantage of you lovely ladies. The quality is bad, but the company is built on lies. She probably buys bags of river stones from the dollar store to make your ‘one of a kind’ pendant.
At Wild & Free I am not only dedicated to a beauty and quality, but ethically sourced limited edition jewelry is what you pay for, so it’s always what you’re going to get.
Dad leans back his lips pursed in thought.
“So, you think this is the person stalking you.”
“It has to be. After I posted this she went on the attack. My followers mobbed her even after I told them not to.” I scroll a little further to my post about trolling and call for them to stop going after her. “She disappeared after that but almost immediately the trolling on my own site began. The nasty emails. The Facebook groups dedicated to finding out who I am. The low reviews and what I thought were bots. It all started after this.”
Dad sighs. “None of this makes any sense to me. Bots, trolls, followers?”
“It’s her Dad. It has to be. She’s figured out who I am. She knows I’m here. I have to leave.”
“You don’t have to leave.”
“I do. She lit my motorhome on fire with me in it!” My voice raises and I click on the message from this morning. “She took a picture of my daughter and said she’s next.”
Red flares across my dad’s face when he sees the message.
“I can’t sit around here and wait for you to find her. She wants to hurt Millie. I’ll take her being mad at me forever if it means keeping her safe.”
Dad sets his jaw and I go back to packing. My phone rings again.
Xan.
My voicemail pings.
I ignore it.
If I talk to him, I won’t go.
If I see him, I’ll fall into him and let him save me.
Chapter Thirty
XAN
I slam my phone down on the counter and Tabby startles at the stove.
“Goddammit, Briggs,” I yell at the phone and then scoop it back up and call again.
My jaw hurts from clenching it so hard and my footsteps are heavy on the tiled floor. My siblings are all here. They’re all tense, watching me with wary eyes like they always do when shit goes down. Usually it’s shit with Jason.
Wildfire Page 17
