Текст книги "Everything I Left Unsaid"

Автор книги: Molly O'Keefe

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

But to accept more…it was too greedy.

Wanting more only got me punished. Wanting more got me hurt. I had to carefully calibrate what I wanted to what I deserved.

A penny more, an inch more, and it would rain something awful down on my head.

I’d let myself have this terrible, terrible thing. And I should end it. Now. Before it got worse. Before I wanted even more. Before…before I ruined everything and told him.

“I have a question for you,” he said. He came over to my chair, and with one hand, he picked me up and set me down on the table and then he pushed in between my legs, bracing his hands on the table beside me.

He was crowding me and I wanted to push him away and pull him closer. All at the same time. I pulled in a deep breath and my breasts touched his chest. The robe had split over my legs and I could feel the denim of his jeans on the insides of my thighs.

He tilted my face up so my eyes met his.

“What are you scared of?” he asked.

DYLAN

Dylan knew fear. He knew how it smelled. What it tasted like—the bitter, coppery taste of blood and adrenaline in the back of the throat. And he knew what it looked like when someone was trying not to be scared.

After he turned sixteen he’d had four long years learning every inch, every side of fear.

“I’m not scared,” Annie whispered.

“And now you’re lying.”

She shook her head and he eased his grip up under her chin.

“Are you scared of me?”

She shook her head, that white-blond hair falling over her eyes. Dylan reached up and brushed it away, taking in all her softness. Her skin. Her hair. All of it. Her entire body communicated her fear. The white-knuckled grip on the champagne glass, the way her eyes wouldn’t stay locked on his. Her shoulders were up at her ears.

“Then who are you scared of?”

“No one,” she breathed. “I’m fine. Just…maybe nervous.”

Why the fuck was she lying? He’d kicked women out of his life for far less than lying to his face. If Dylan was thinking at all, he’d pack this girl up and send her on her way.

But he wasn’t thinking. And that always meant trouble.

“No one’s ever gone to all this trouble for me,” she said, putting her hand out toward that gross cheese Margaret insisted was the best and the olives.

“It’s not that much trouble,” Dylan muttered. Truthfully, he would break every rule he had, every promise he’d ever made, and go to all the trouble in the world for this girl and she had no idea. None.

He’d made a joke earlier about her living in a box before. And he knew he wasn’t wrong. She’d talked about her mom, and Dylan had the sense that she wasn’t the only one that had kept Annie small and pushed down.

“I don’t need champagne,” she said, setting down her glass. She was doing it again, that thing that made him nuts. Pushing past her fear to be brave, to reach out, however scared, for what she wanted. “I don’t need fancy cheese and all this…stuff.”

“It’s a seduction, Annie. It’s about want. Not need.”

“You’ve already seduced me,” she whispered. “All I want is you.”

She reached up and pulled the lapels of the robe off her shoulders, revealing herself to him. That creamy skin. The small, round, tight breasts with the pink nipples. She pulled open the belt and the rest of the robe fell away and she sat there surrounded in black satin, like a present just for Dylan.

And Jesus…she’d shaved.

That tender sweet spot between her legs was nearly bare.

“Oh baby, look at you…”

“Finish this,” she said. There were two terrible, trembling inches between them. She couldn’t hide how much she wanted him. But she also couldn’t hide how much she didn’t want to want him. “Just…let’s finish this.”

“You think if we fuck each other hard enough it will go away?” he asked her. He was already hard as steel behind his zipper. “We’ll get it out of our systems?”

“That has to work,” she said. “It has to.”

Dylan pushed back her hair, holding her face in his hard hands. He was worlds too rough. Worlds too wrong. But he was going to take what she was offering. “You really are innocent, aren’t you?”

She shook her head and he could feel her shaking in her skin. Her eyes were frantic on his.

“If we do this right, it’s only going to get worse.”

Dylan didn’t give her a chance to argue. He picked her up again, his hands under her armpits, and she wasn’t awkward this time. She put her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist and he carried her down the hallway again, this time straight to his bedroom. Where it was dark and still.

No one had ever been here with him. Not ever. And when she left, he knew her ghost was going to haunt this bedroom. This whole damn house. And it pissed him off. It pissed him off that he wasn’t strong enough to stop it. That he had no shred of control left with this girl. She stripped it all away with her wide eyes and her clenched fists and all her secrets and lies.

“Lie back,” he growled into her ear, and when he let go, she fell back onto the bed, naked and beautiful against the dark, silky duvet.

Dylan stood over her, fully clothed, his dick so hard it hurt.

Who the fuck was this girl to do this to him?

No one, he wanted to say, wanting her to be nothing. Wanting her to not matter. She was just a lying bit of trash from a trailer park who happened to pick up a phone call.

But it wasn’t true.

She was fucking killing him.

“You got something you want to tell me, don’t you?” he asked.

She blinked up at Dylan and then tried to scoot away to the other side of the bed, but he grabbed her leg. Not hard. Just enough to hold her.

“No,” she said. “I’m not going to tell you. And you’ve got no right to be mad. You’re not telling me things either.”

Wasn’t that the truth? In a heartbeat he saw what a dead end this was and how fast they were rushing toward it. And because it was his nature to destroy, he put his foot on the gas and made sure when they hit that dead end they were really over. That there would be no pieces for them to pick up.

“Past this,” he said, his eyes locked on hers. “You can stay in my place in Charleston. I want you to. I want you to be safe. And you can call if you need help. Margaret will take care of you. Or one of my guys. But it won’t be me. We are never going to talk or see each other again. Ever again. Do you understand that?”

She nodded, her cheeks bright. Her eyes brighter.

“Do you still want me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said on a sobbing gust of air, sounding nearly hopeless against this thing between them. “I do.”

Dylan knew the feeling. But there was no point fighting it anymore. The new rules were set. Today and then over.

He tore off his shirt, the buttons flying from the fabric to ping against the wall. He felt her eyes on his chest, the Virgin Mother and his own mother’s name. He felt her picking apart his secrets, gathering up sharp broken pieces of him and trying to put them back together. Just like he was doing with her, trying to pick apart her lies and her secrets to find the truth of her.

And they would keep on doing that if he didn’t stop it.

“Spread your legs,” he said. And she did without hesitation. Without fear. “Wider.”

She braced her heels on the bed and spread her legs as wide as she could. God. She’d totally shaved. She was bare and sweet between her legs.

“You shaved your pussy. For me.” He couldn’t help himself anymore—he reached out and touched her, ran his finger down the seam of her fat, soft lips. It came away wet. She wanted this just as much as he did. The reality of it was kerosene on a fire.

She jerked and groaned at his touch, gathering the bedspread in her fists. “I thought you’d like it.”

“I do like it. But you are going to love it,” he breathed, and then he got down on his knees beside the bed and pulled her by her hips to the edge. “Keep your legs apart,” he growled, and she snapped the leg back that had curled over his shoulder.

He licked her with the flat of his tongue, all along her lips, and she closed her eyes, her breath a ragged gasp. It was better if she didn’t watch. If he didn’t feel her eyes on him. He used his thumbs to part her, to stretch her wide, and she flinched, so he eased up. Until she moaned with pleasure again.

“Look at you,” he breathed, staring down at all that pink flesh. With the tip of his tongue he touched her clit, licked it, and rolled it. And then sucked it into his mouth. Hard. She shot up off the bed, her legs jerking, clasping his head between them.

“Don’t make me tell you again,” he said, breathing all over her pussy. “Spread. Your. Legs.”

“I don’t like bossy men,” she groaned but did what he asked, and he felt like he had her all staked out for his pleasure. The only places they touched were his mouth, his fingers, and her pussy. And yet he felt that connection all through his body. Like they were skin to skin with not even air between them.

He teased her with that long, slow lick over and over again and he could feel her arching up toward him, searching for something solid to grind against.

“Touch me,” she whispered.

“I am.”

“More.”

He curled his tongue over her clit, barely touching it.

“Why…why are you being so far away?” she asked.

“Because you’re lying to me about something and I don’t mind getting used as long as I get to use you right back.”

She flinched at his words. The ugliness of them.

But then he slipped a finger down to her pussy, entering her just enough so she could feel it, and then he pulled back and slid his finger down from her pussy to her asshole, burning a trail against the slick flesh there.

“Dylan,” she sobbed, pushing against him. Wanting more. The fucking truth of her was that she would take everything he had. They could burn down his whole mountain with this fire between them.

And the knowledge sucked.

“This is what it’s like between two liars, baby,” he said, his finger rimming her pussy. “This is what you get.”

“I want more, please.”

“There is no more.”

“Don’t,” she breathed. “Don’t be like this.” She sat up, reaching for him, tears in her eyes, and he couldn’t fucking take it. He stepped back away from her, trying to get his breath. His bearings. The ragged, burning edges of his control kept slipping through his slick fingers.

He could smell her on him. On his fingers. His face. She would be all over his sheets when they were done.

He undid his pants, pushed his underwear down until his cock sprang free.

She reached for him, her eyes hotter than the fire that scarred him.

“No,” he said, an act of self-preservation if ever there’d been one. Her eyes flew to his. “Don’t touch me,” he said, and she dropped her hands.

He didn’t know if he was hurting her. Scaring her. If she’d tried to leave at this point, he would have let her. Part of him wanted to scare her enough that she would leave. Part of him wanted her to stand up and call him an asshole. Smack him. Because he deserved that. And she deserved to be pissed.

But this fucking hunger they had for each other kept them here, locked together in this tragedy.

She sat there, her hands in her lap.

Trusting him.

“Don’t,” he said, the word bursting out of him before he could stop it.

“Don’t what?” she whispered, her eyes wide.

He didn’t have just one answer, he had a thousand.

Silent, he took a condom off the bedside table and slid it on. He could barely touch himself he was so turned on. Whatever was going to happen between them right now was going to be fast and hard.

He felt angry and awful. Which, he figured, was how he should feel. Guilty and miserable.

“Roll over,” he told her.

“What?”

She was too slow, he was too wild, and he lifted her hips and rolled her himself, pulling her up onto her knees. He climbed onto the bed behind her and then held his cock, notching himself against her, slipping through her hot, wet pussy to get inside.

With a hiss, she pulled forward away from him and he stopped, lifting his hands away from her. But his cock was just inside of her. Waiting.

Carefully, she pushed back against him and then stopped.

Christ, he didn’t want to hurt her. He began to pull out but she reached around and grabbed his thigh, holding him still. “Don’t…” she whispered. “Don’t leave.”

“Jesus Christ, Annie, if it hurts, say it. If you don’t want this, say it.” Their secrets were making a mess of them; all their sharp, jagged edges were out, waiting to hurt each other.

“It…doesn’t hurt.”

“You want this?” he asked, because he wasn’t sure. She was wet and she was hot, but he wasn’t about to take something she didn’t want to give.

“Yes.”

“Say it, Annie. Just fucking say what you want.”

“I want you inside me.”

Her words lit him up but he didn’t push into her.

“Take me,” he said, and then watched as bit by bit she eased back on him.

Slowly he pushed forward until she had every inch of him.

“You ready?” he breathed, and she nodded. Her arms braced against the bed were shaking. His legs were. The bed was trembling under all their restraint.

Slowly he eased back and then forward. And she eased forward and then back and they found a terrible rhythm. Deep and then deeper each time, turning them inside out. He tried not to touch her, but his hands slid over her hips, holding onto her waist. The pressure built in him. A beautiful pressure. Pleasure and pain. Light and dark. Guilt and ecstasy. Grief and happiness.

He was close. Too close and unable to stop. He reached around her, slipping over her bare skin toward her clit, and she grabbed his hand in a grip that was surprisingly strong. Fierce. The rough and raw edges of her calluses and blisters brushed over his. She laced their fingers together.

And somehow that was more intimate than anything else.

Last time, he thought, letting himself absorb the intimacy. Like drinking all the water he could before heading out into the desert.

Last time. Last time.

“Come on,” he growled and shook off her hand, unable to take it. “Fuck. Come, baby.”

And she did. She exploded under him, crying out and falling down on the mattress. She pulled him down with her and he blanketed her. Covered her. And filled her.

Perfect.

The orgasm rocked him.

Crushed him.

And he lay there, heaving against her. Feeling her shake and tremble beneath him.

God, she was so small. He could feel the knobs of her spine against his stomach. The fragile bones of her rib cage against his arms. He could carry her in his pocket.

He wanted to carry her in his pocket.

He’d learned the hard way to keep his wants and desires on a short list. Wanting too much, either one thing or a million, only meant he wouldn’t get it. He was clumsy with fragile things—always trying to hold onto them so hard they broke.

The thought was enough to make him pull out, holding onto the edge of the condom.

He went into the bathroom, dumped the condom, and peed.

Twenty-nine years old, and some of those years had been wild, and he’d never experienced anything like Annie. Not once.

The physical reality of the connection they had on the phone blew his mind. Destroyed it. And he didn’t know how he was going to let her walk away from him.

How did anyone walk away from what they’d just shared? They couldn’t. He couldn’t.

One more day, at least, he thought. Fuck the secrets. He just wanted to test this thing between them as far as it would go. Find the red line and hold it there until they both fell apart.

When he stepped back out into the bedroom she had curled up on the bed, her knees to her chest, and when she heard him she pulled the blanket up over her body like she didn’t want him to see her.

“Annie?” he asked, worried suddenly that he really had hurt her. He’d been rough. And angry. Raw. Maybe—

“I’m married.”

He blinked. “What?”

“I’m married, Dylan. That’s what I haven’t told you.”

ANNIE

My words echoed. In my head. In the room. Probably all over this damn mountain.

Get up, Annie. Get up. Get dressed and get gone.

What had happened between us on the bed had been the most amazing experience of my life. It was like we’d used our anger to make it all somehow better and worse at the same time. Beautiful and awful. That’s what we were.

And guilt was shredding me to pieces.

With shaking arms I pushed myself up off the bed. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, standing there in the doorway to the bathroom. His hand on the door frame like he couldn’t stand up on his own.

“I’m sorry,” I said, tears clogging my throat. “I’m so sorry…” A sob slipped out and I shook my head, gathering the duvet around me as best I could before slipping off the bed and heading for the door.

I had to get my clothes. Maybe…maybe he’d let me take the socks. It was cold. I’d leave everything else. The pajamas and the soft shirt. The robe. I’d leave it all. And I wouldn’t ask for one more thing. Except the socks and…Shit. I had no way home.

“I don’t…can I get a ride to a bus station or something? And I’ll need to borrow some money. I’ll pay you back—”

“Stop,” he breathed, as if he’d just woken up. “You’re married? Like right now, you’re married?”

I took a deep breath and forced myself to look at him.

He was naked and still braced in the doorway, as if his feet wouldn’t work. Sweat still gleamed on his chest, across those tattoos. His cock, so pink, lay against his leg.

“Yes,” I said. “Right now, I am married.”

He glanced away and wiped a hand over his face and head, making all the dark hair stand up.

“I didn’t have anything with me when you brought me here,” I said. I wished more than I could say that I could throw on some clothes, grab my keys, and drive out of there, but I was totally at his mercy. “I need help getting home.”

He let out a long breath and when he turned to look at me, his eyes were wide. “Home?”

“Back to the trailer park.”

“Get dressed, Annie,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere just yet.”

He went back into the bathroom and came out with my clothes, which he tossed at me. I caught them with one hand; the other still had a death grip on the quilt. “Go get dressed. We’re going to talk.”

In my bedroom I put on the sun-and-moon pants and the pink shirt. A pair of socks. I found a hoodie sweatshirt, too, and slipped that on, burying my ice-cold hands in the front pockets. Slowly the shaking stopped. The shock of telling the truth wore away, leaving me somehow stripped. I felt weightless somehow…impossibly sorry and deeply guilty, but a boulder had been rolled off my back.

I found Dylan in the kitchen, leaning back in the corner of the counter space. He was drinking a beer. He wore jeans and his inscrutable expression; otherwise he was naked.

When I came in he took a long drink and then set the beer down, very carefully, as if everything hinged on his getting that beer down on the right bit of countertop.

Back on the farm, I used to have a rib that kept popping out of place. And it made it hard to sleep, to breathe. Impossible to work. I’d walk around trying to manage the pain, only half-living. My whole life lived in halves because I couldn’t do anything. And then Smith would notice, give me hell for not saying anything, and he’d give me one of those big bear hugs and it would pop right back into place.

Telling the secret was like that.

For the first time since I answered that phone call, I could take a deep breath. A real one. I had no idea what was going to happen next. But at least I could breathe.

“I’m sorry I got you involved in this,” I said, feeling oddly calm. “I…I didn’t think it would get this far.”

“Adultery?”

I nodded.

“Well.” His words had the sharp edge of sarcasm all over them. “It’s a first for me.”

“When…when we were just on the phone it didn’t seem so…wrong.”

“Where’s your husband?” he asked, and I couldn’t quite stop my flinch. Husband. That word always sounded like a threat. And he spit it out like he wanted to wound me with it.

“Still on the farm, I think.”

“Are you separated? In the process of getting a divorce?”

I shook my head, my hands in knots in my pockets. I couldn’t even give him that kind of comfort.

“Jesus, Annie, tell me what the hell is going on.”

“I ran.” I swallowed, hard, my throat impossibly dry. I grabbed what was left of my champagne on the table and finished it, my throat raw and painful. Had I screamed when I came in his bedroom? Or was it just the pain of telling what I’d never told anyone?

“Two months ago, I packed up a bag and I took all the money I could get my hands on and I waited until three o’clock in the morning, until he was sleeping, and I ran.”

He straightened up from the corner and took a step closer to me but stopped when I stiffened. I could not be touched right now.

“Why?” he breathed.

The tears it felt like I’d been holding back forever spilled over my cheeks. A hot waterfall trickling down over my chin onto my throat. “Because he was going to kill me.”

“What?”

“If I stayed my husband would kill me somehow. It was only a matter of time.”

“Oh, Jesus, oh…Annie.” He stepped toward me and I stepped back, my hand up to stop him. He ignored it. For the first time he ignored it and I realized for all his anger the last day, he’d been mine to control. If I said stop, he stopped.

Not now, though. Now, he pulled out a chair and helped me sit down in it as if I were an old lady. As if I were as old on the outside as I felt on the inside.

“Tell me,” he said, crouching down in front of me.

The urge to touch him, brush back his hair, trail my fingers over that scar tissue, was real and difficult to manage. But he was not mine to touch. Not anymore. Not ever, really. He was something I never should have reached for.

“My mom died when I was eighteen, and Hoyt was already working at the farm. I didn’t know how to run the farm, the bookkeeping and the paperwork. Mom did all of it. And when she died I was just so lost. So totally lost. Smith wasn’t good at that stuff, though he tried. We both did. But then Hoyt kind of stepped in. And he offered to do more and then still more. All the stuff I didn’t know how to do or was scared of—he just took over. And then I don’t…I don’t really know how it started, but it seemed like…we were dating. Like I was his, already. And that’s what I was used to, you know. I was like an appendage—first my mom’s and then Hoyt’s. I didn’t know how to be my own self. And I was really alone and really scared and when he asked me to marry him, it seemed like the right thing to do.”

“You were eighteen.” I nodded. “Did you love him?”

I smiled and tried to stop my tears. “I don’t know anything about love, Dylan. All I know is survival. And I didn’t think I was capable of surviving on my own. But I did like him at the beginning. I…I wanted to be in love. And my mom, over the years, had sort of convinced me that being alone was the worst thing that could happen. Being alone meant no one loved me and I was terrified of that.”

“Then what happened?” He tucked a piece of hair back behind my ear and I flinched away from him.

“Annie?”

I closed my eyes. “Please…I’ll answer all your questions, but please don’t touch me.”

I felt him move back, pull up a chair so he was close, but no longer close enough to touch. I dragged in a ragged breath.

“Then we got married. A little civil ceremony at the courthouse and for…I don’t know, a few months, everything seemed fine. Happy, even. Or maybe I was just forcing myself to believe that. To want that to be true. It’s not like I had any scale with which to measure that, you know?” I thought of those evenings on the porch, learning chess with Smith. Or when he taught me to drive. Those were my happy times at the farm. So few and far between, like flowers growing out of asphalt. Since running, though? That evening in Tiffany’s trailer with the buckets and the hangover the next day. Cleaning up that field. Skinny-dipping. All those conversations with Dylan on the phone. How sad that those were really my happiest times.

“Annie?” Dylan said, pulling me from my thoughts.

I cleared my throat. “After a while Hoyt stopped me from going to church. Or into town if I had to. What few friends I had, he didn’t like and I…stopped seeing them. Stopped seeing anyone. And then he had me fire Smith. We were already isolated out on the farm, but he turned it into a prison. And I didn’t even realize.” I turned my face away.

“Do you need a drink?” he asked.

I shook my head. I felt like I was going to throw up. “The first time he hit me,” I said, “it wasn’t even strange. It was like he’d been conditioning me to expect it. Like he spent months making sure that when he smacked me and told me it was my fault I would believe it. That I wouldn’t even think it was all that shocking. It had been over a chicken potpie that was still frozen in the middle or something. And he hit me and I…I just picked up the pieces of that potpie he’d thrown. The whole time my cheek was on fire and I’d bitten my tongue so bad I was swallowing blood.”

“Jesus,” he breathed, and I tried very hard to tell myself that this was not my shame; it was Hoyt’s. I did not have to be embarrassed that I’d been hit. That I’d been systematically hurt. That I couldn’t see a way out of it.

And maybe someday I’d believe that with my whole heart. But today was not that day. I was embarrassed. Embarrassed that I’d trusted a man like that. Married him. Held myself accountable to him. Let him do that. Over and over again. And I’d convinced myself it was okay.

“How long did this go on?”

“Four years. Until…he wanted to sell the majority of the land to an energy company to put up windmills. And I agreed only so far—”

“Is it your land?”

I nodded.

“Annie, it’s your farm?”

“Yes.” I snapped, hearing everything he wasn’t saying. About how I’d been a coward to leave all my land behind. That I should have been stronger and gotten Hoyt to leave somehow. I knew all of this in my gut, but running with no plan and nothing but fear and three thousand dollars had, at the time, seemed smarter. Easier. I’d left my legacy behind, my livelihood and the only home I’d ever known. The truth of it sat like a ball of fire in my stomach. “It’s been in my mom’s family for three generations and I didn’t want to sell any more of it. And I wouldn’t change my mind.”

“What did he do?”

I put my hand to my throat as if I could still find the bruises he put there. I wanted to dig my thumb into one of those black wounds and remind myself of the pain. “He strangled me until I passed out on the kitchen floor. And he left me there. Went to bed. Just…like I was nothing. Like he could do anything to me and it didn’t matter. And I sat on that floor and had to convince myself that it wasn’t true. That I did matter.”

It took hours. Days to build up that courage. To believe I mattered. That’s how far he had pushed me down.

Dylan stood up and paced away from me, hands locked on his head. I watched his agitation as if from a long ways away. I felt increasingly numb to the whole thing. To all of it.

“I waited a few days and then ran.”

He turned, his jaw clenched so hard I worried he was making gravel out of his teeth.

“What about divorce?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“It’s your land, Annie!”

“What’s the good of it if I’m dead?” I cried.

“I have lawyers, Annie. Good ones. Ones that can keep you safe and get you free and make sure he crawls away with nothing. Goes to jail and never comes out.”

“I don’t have money for that, Dylan.”

He stared at me, his eyes so sad. “Do you think I wouldn’t give you that money? Do you think I could let you just walk away after you’ve told me this?”

I blinked. “Yes,” I said.

“What kind of man do you think I am?”

I shook my head and turned in the chair, toward the bedroom as if to go grab more of my things. But I didn’t have anything. Nothing. Not even three thousand dollars of stolen money and a box of hair dye.

“I think you should take me home.”

“Listen to me, Annie,” he said, stepping close, but not too close as if the boundaries between us had been rearranged. “Do you really want to go back to that shitty trailer park and hide for the rest of your life?”

I wished I could say I wasn’t going to do that. But I had no other plan. I was…hell, I was just like Ben, hiding and waiting for something better to come along.

“Let me help you,” he said.

“How?”

“We can talk to the lawyers today, Annie. And…I want you to stay in my house in Charleston. It’s safer, Annie. It’s so much safer.”

“No.” I shook my head, denying him, denying myself, because I should have done that a long time ago. The first time I picked up the phone. Every single time afterward. At the very least when Margaret had put me in the blue room, I should have stayed there. So much would be different if I hadn’t been so curious and selfish. If I’d left Layla out of it and just stayed Annie McKay.

“Baby, listen. You got this far, on your own and with nothing. There’s no shame in taking help now.”

“I don’t want you to get any more mixed up in this. I feel so bad for lying to you.”

“Don’t, Annie. Don’t feel bad. Just take my help.”

He kept talking, something about restraining orders, and to my great shame, my horrified disbelief, I wanted to nod and say thank you and yes, please, help me. Take care of these things for me, because I don’t understand them and I’m scared. And I feel so damn small in the face of all I need to do.

It was exactly, exactly how I felt when Mom died and Hoyt walked into the office, looked at the computer, and told me he knew how to do payroll. And he could help.

I stood up from the chair so fast it screeched over the hardwood floor. I wished I could say no to all of his help. That I had the resources to do this on my own, but I didn’t. But just because I needed help didn’t mean that I needed to pull him in any deeper. I had to have a fence around his help. For my sake.

For his. I could not rely on him for any more than those things that I could not do without.

“I wish I could say I don’t need your help…but I do. Clearly, I don’t even know where to start. And your lawyers would be a big help. I’ll pay you back.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No, Dylan,” I snapped. “I’m not without means. I have money. I’m not as rich as you, but I can pay you back.”

He watched me, solemn and serious, and nodded. “All right. Why don’t you go lie down for a while,” he said. “And I’ll set up a conference call.”