by J. R. Ward
"So what's the second thing you wanted to say," she murmured looking down at their feet.
When he didn't immediately respond, she glanced back over at him--and recoiled.
His eyes had grown cold and his body seemed to change even as he didn't shift at all.
"The second is . . ." Samuel T. cursed and let his head fall back. "No, I think I'll keep that to myself. It's not going to help this situation."
But she could guess what it was. "I love you, too, Samuel."
"Just think about how strong you are. Please, Gin."
After a moment, he reached out and moved that big diamond around so it was hidden. Then he brought her wrist up and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. "And remember what I said."
Getting to his feet, he showed her his phone again. "Always on. No questions asked."
With a last look at her, he put his hands in his pockets and walked away, a solemn figure bathed in the peachy light of the lampposts.
And then he was gone.
Gin stayed where they had sat together for so long, the night air turned cold enough to raise goose bumps on her forearms.
Yet she found it impossible to go home.
FORTY-TWO
As Edward said the words in the middle of the busy restaurant, he was amazed at how good they felt. It was a simple chain of syllables, nothing too fancy vocabulary-wise, but the admission was a tremendous one.
I'm in love with somebody.
And actually, he'd already told Sutton the truth of it all. At the business center after they'd made love. He'd just done it so softly, she hadn't heard the words.
In response, Shelby looked around at the other diners. The waitress. The people behind the counter and the ones cooking in the back. "Is she the reason you wouldn't . . . you know, get with me?"
"Yes." He thought of those nights they'd spent side by side in that bed. "But there was another reason, too."
"What's that?"
"I know what you're doing with me. I remember what your father was like. Sometimes we do things over, you know? When we feel like we didn't get them right the first time."
Hell, it was the story of him and his brothers and their father. If Edward was brutally honest with himself, he had always wanted to save his siblings from the man, but the damage had been done anyway. Their father had had that much power, at once absent, and at the same time, totally controlling.
And violent in a cold way that was somehow scarier than outbursts of yelling and throwing things.
"I've done that myself," he said quietly. "Actually, I'm still doing it--so you and I are the same, really. We're both saviors looking for a cause."
Shelby was quiet for so long, he started to wonder if she was going to walk out or something.
But then she spoke up. "I took care of my father not because I loved him, but because if he killed himself, what was I going to do? I had no mother. I had nowhere to go. Living with his drinking was easier than facing the streets at twelve or thirteen."
Edward winced as he tried to imagine her as a little girl with no one to care for her, desperately attempting to fix an adult's addiction as a survival mechanism for herself.
"I'm sorry," Edward blurted.
"For what? You had nothing to do with his drinkin'."
"No, but I had everything to do with being drunk around you. And putting you in a position you're too goddamn good at--"
"Don't you take--"
"Sorry, darn--"
"--my Lord's name in vain."
"--good at."
There was a pause. And then they both laughed.
Shelby grew serious again. "I don't know what else to do with you. And I also hate the suffering."
"That's because you're a good person. You're a really, really GD good person."
She smiled. "You caught yourself."
"I'm learning."
Their food arrived, the chicken nestled in baskets lined with red and white paper, the French fries thin and hot, the waitress asking if they needed more soda.
"I am starving," Edward remarked after they were alone with their food.
"Me too."
As they set to eating, they fell into silence, but it was the good kind. And he found himself feeling so glad they hadn't ever had sex.
"Have you told her?" Shelby asked.
Edward wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. "What? Oh . . . yeah. No. She leads a totally different life than I do. She's where I used to be, and I'm never going back there again."
For more reasons than one.
"You should probably tell her," Shelby said between bites. "If you were in love with me . . . I'd want to know."
As she spoke, there was a wistful tone in her voice, but her eyes were not glassy from some kind of fantasy or sad from some sort of loss. And when she didn't pursue the issue, he thought about what she'd said before, about her accepting people exactly where they were, just like she did the horses.
"I want you to know something." Edward smacked the bottom of a bottle of ketchup to add more to the side of his fries. "And I want you to do something."
"Do I get to pick which one you tell me first?"
"Sure."
"What do you want me to do? If it's about Neb, I've already scheduled the vet's check-up for tomorrow afternoon."
He laughed. "You read my mind. But no, that's not it." He wiped his mouth again. "I want you to go out with Joey."
As she looked up sharply, he put his palm up. "Just a dinner date. Nothing fancy. And no, he hasn't asked me to talk to you, and frankly, if he knew I was, he'd leave me limping worse than I already do. But I think you should give the poor guy a chance. He's got a bad crush on you."
Shelby stared across the table in complete confusion. "He does?"
"Oh, come on. You're spectacular around horses, and you're a damn good-looking woman." He put his finger up. "I did not say God."
"I just never noticed him much, other than the workin'."
"Well, you should."
She sat back and shook her head. "You know . . . I really can't believe this."
"That someone might actually be attracted to you? Well, someone who isn't trying to suck you down into their own black hole of self-destruction, that is?"
"Well, that, too. But I just never would have guessed that you'd be openin' up like this."
He picked up his Coke and considered the fizzy goodness. "Guess sobriety affects me like alcohol does most people. Makes me chatty."
"It's kinda . . ."
"What? And be honest."
"It's real nice." Her voice got soft and she looked away. "It's real good."
Edward found himself clearing his throat. "Miracles do happen."
"And I've never seen you eat this much before."
"It's been a while."
"So do you just hate my cooking?"
He laughed and pushed his fries away. One more and he was going to burst. On that note, he said, "I want ice cream now. Come on."
"I don't think she left a bill."
Edward leaned to the side and took out the thousand dollars. Peeling off two hundred-dollar bills, he said, "This should cover it."
As Shelby's eyes bugged, he got to his feet and held out his hand. "Come on. I'm stuffed, so I need that ice cream now."
"That makes no sense."
"Oh, it does." He started limping for the door, going around the other diners at their tables. "Cold and sweet settles the stomach. It's what my momma, Miss Aurora, has always said, and she's always right. And no, I don't hate your cooking at all. You're very good at it."
Outside, he took a moment to appreciate the night air again, and it felt good to have a certain lightness in his chest for once, a singing sensation that would have been optimism in someone else, but in his case, was relief.
"Except you don't want to go heavy with the ice cream," he informed her as he walked forward, checking to see if there were any cars coming. "Keep it light. Vanilla only. Maybe with chocolate chips, but nothing with n
uts and nothing too gooey. Graeter's is best."
With a clear shot across the two lanes to her truck, Shelby fell in step beside him, shortening her stride to accommodate his lack of speed.
"Sir! Oh, sir?"
Edward looked back as they got to the other side of the road. Their waitress had come out of the restaurant with the money he'd left.
"Your bill's only twenty-four and some change," the woman said across the street. "This is way too much--"
"You keep the change." He smiled as her eyes grew wide, and then she looked at the money like she didn't know what it was. "I'll bet being on those feet all shift makes your back ache like hell. I should know from the aching. Treat yourself to a night off or something."
She focused on him--only to frown. "Wait a minute . . . are you--"
"Nobody. I'm nobody." He waved good-bye and turned to the truck. "Just another customer."
"Well, thank you!" she called out. "It's the biggest tip I've ever gotten!"
"You deserve it," he said over his shoulder.
Heading around the cab, he opened Shelby's door and helped her in even though she didn't need the help.
"That was a really nice thing to do," she said.
"Well, it's probably the best meal I've had since--no offense."
"None taken." She put her hand on his arm before he could shut her in. "What's the thing you want me to know?"
Before he replied, Edward leaned against the door, removing the weight from his bad ankle. "You're always going to have a job at the Red & Black. For however long you want it, you will always have the work and the apartment. Hell, I can see you and Moe running the thing together--whether or not you let his son take you out on a date, whether or not you like Joey back."
Shelby glanced away in that manner she seemed to when she was emotional. And as Edward studied her face, he thought, Huh, this must be what it's like to have a proper little sister.
Gin was more like having a banshee in your house.
Or a tornado.
After all, much as he loved that woman, he had never felt particularly close to her. He wasn't sure anyone ever got close to Gin.
And so yes, it was nice to feel protective, but not possessive, over someone. Nice to do a good thing or two. Nice to send something other than acid anger out into the world.
Abruptly, she looked at him.
"Why do I get the impression you're leaving?" she asked grimly.
*
In the end, Gin returned to Easterly because there was nowhere else for her to go. Parking the Drophead in its berth in the garages, she walked over to the kitchen entrance and went in through the screen door.
As usual, everything was neat and in order, no pans in the sink, the dishwasher quietly running, the countertops gleaming. There was a lingering sweetness in the air, that old-fashioned soap Miss Aurora used.
Gin's heart was beating as she proceeded to the door to the woman's private quarters. Curling up a fist, she hesitated before knocking.
"Come on in, girl," came the demand from the other side. "Don't just stand there."
Opening the way in, Gin hung her head because she didn't want the tears in her eyes to show. "How did you know it was me?"
"Your perfume. And I've been waiting for you. Also saw the car come in."
Miss Aurora's living space was set up in exactly the same way it always had been, two big stuffed chairs set against long windows, shelves full of pictures of kids and grown-ups, a galley kitchen that was as spotless and orderly as the women's big, professionally appointed one. Gin had never been in the bedroom and bath; nor would it ever have occured to her to ask to see them.
Eventually, Gin looked up. Miss Aurora was in the chair she always used, and she indicated the vacant one. "Sit."
Gin went across and did as she was told. As she smoothed her skirt, she thought of doing so when she'd been in the reflecting garden with Samuel T.
"It's called an annulment," Miss Aurora said abruptly. "And you should do it immediately. I'm a Christian woman, but I will tell you plainly that you married a bad man. Then again, you act before you think, you are rebellious even when no one is doin' you wrong, and your version of freedom is being out of control, it's not about making choices."
Gin had to laugh. "You know, you're the second person who's torn me apart tonight."
"Well, that's 'cuz the good Lord clearly thinks you need to hear the message twice."
Gin thought about her whole out-of-control thing. Remembered her and Richard fighting in her room just the other night, and her going for that Imari lamp. "My mood's been all over the place lately."
"That's because the sand's shifting under your feet. You don't know what you're standing on, and that makes a body dizzy."
Putting her face in her hands, she shook her head. "I don't know how much more of this I can take."
During the trip back from the seminary, she had vacillated between that emotionally difficult, but clear-sighted, conversation with Samuel T. . . . and her urge to re-embrace the calculated mania of her old way of doing things.
"There is nothing that cannot be undone," Miss Aurora said. "And your true family will not desert you, even if the money does."
Gin thought of the great house they were in. "I failed at being a mother."
"No, you didn't try."
"It's too late."
"If I'd said that when I came into this house and met the four of you, where would you all be?"
Gin remembered back to all those nights the five of them had eaten together in the kitchen. Even as a fleet of nannies had cycled through the household, mostly because they were tortured and way out-gunned, Miss Aurora had been the one person who could corral her and her brothers.
Searching the photographs on the shelves, Gin became teary again as she saw several of her--and she pointed to a picture of her in pigtails. "That was on the way to summer camp."
"You were ten."
"I hated the food."
"I know. I had to feed you for a month after you got home--and you'd only been away for two weeks."
"That one's Amelia, isn't it."
Miss Aurora grunted as she turned in her chair. "Which one? The pink?"
"Yes."
"She was seven and a half."
"You were there for her, too."
"Yes, I was. She's the closest thing to a true granddaughter I have because you're the closest thing to a daughter I have."
Gin brushed under her eyes. "I'm glad she has you. She got kicked out of Hotchkiss, you know."
"That's what she told me."
"I'm so glad she comes to talk to you--"
"You know I'm not going to be here forever, right?" As Gin looked over, Miss Aurora's dark eyes were steady. "When I'm gone, you need to pick up the slack with her. No one else will, and she's got one foot in childhood, one in adulthood. It's a precarious time. You step up, Virginia Elizabeth, or I swear I will haunt you. Do you hear me, girl? I will come back as your conscience and I will not let you rest."
For the first time, Gin properly focused on Miss Aurora. Under her housecoat, she was thinner than she had ever been, her face drawn with bags under her eyes.
"You can't die," Gin heard herself say. "You just can't."
Miss Aurora laughed. "That's up to God. Not you or me."
FORTY-THREE
Lane was not leaving the business center until the detectives were finished. As a result, therefore, he found himself walking in and out of the offices, killing time until eventually, he found himself opening the way into his father's space and taking a seat in the chair his dear old dad had always sat in.
And that was when he had an aha! moment.
Pushing himself around on the leather throne, he shook his head and wondered why it hadn't dawned on him sooner.
There were shelves behind the desk, shelves that were filled with your standard-issue, leather-bound volumes and framed diplomas and manly effects of a life lived to impress other people with money: sailing trophie
s, horse pictures, bourbon bottles that were unusual or special. But none of that was what interested him.
No, what he had suddenly noticed and cared about were the built-in, hand-tooled, wood-faced cabinets that were underneath the ego display.
Leaning down, he tried a couple, but they were all locked--and yet there didn't seem to be any obvious places to put keys or enter codes--
One of the French doors to the terrace opened, and Lizzie came in, a pair of sweet teas in her hands and something that looked like a sleeve of Fig Newtons in the pocket of her shorts.
"I'm hungry," she said. "And I feel like sharing the wealth."
As she headed around and dropped a kiss on his lips, he pulled her into his lap and helped her take out the cookies. "Sounds good to me."
"How are things going in there?"
"I have no idea. I keep expecting them to say that they've copied the files and are off, but not yet."
"It's been a while." She opened the plastic wrapping and offered him one. When he shook his head, she put a cookie in her mouth. "But they haven't asked for anything else?"
"No." Taking a sip of what she'd brought, he sighed. "Oh, yeah. This is good."
"So guess what?"
"Tell me."
"I'm giving myself a promotion." As he laughed, she nodded. "I'm appointing myself house manager."
The instant she said it, he thought, Oh, thank God. Because yes, the bills were piling up, and staff had to be handled, and the endless details of the estate had to be dealt with even if there was a freeze on spending. But . . .
"Wait, you have so much work already. The gardens, and--"
"Here's the thing. Mr. Harris has quit."
Lane shook his head. "You know, I'm actually relieved."
"Yeah, me, too. I helped him move out today. I didn't want to go into it with you at the time because he'd made up his mind and there's been so much else going on. But his check bounced, and it made me think about what's going on with your household accounts--this place is expensive to run with a lot of moving parts. I mean, like, we need to pay all those waiters. We can't just leave them hanging. The groundsmen all have checks that go out automatically, I just don't know when? And if there weren't enough funds for Mr. Harris? Then there aren't enough for the other people."
"Shit, I didn't even think about that."
"I know that you're going to want to do right by everyone. So we've got to get money into the household account, and we need to make staffing plans. If cuts have to be made, we've got to give people notice. We can't have the folks who work here in good faith get hurt."
