by Sarah Hegger
Her shoes were by the door with her bag, and she grabbed them and slid them on. Staring at his key on her keyring she almost didn’t take it off. In the end, she forced herself to remove it and leave it on the table by the door. She didn’t have the right to let herself in and out of Eric’s house anymore.
The drive home was quiet and uneventful. Letting herself into her quiet apartment, she crept into her bedroom and got ready for bed. She showered the scent of Eric off her and brushed her teeth.
Once she was safely beneath her duvet, she let the harsh control over her emotions go. She rolled over, buried her face in her pillow and sobbed. She had known before she’d made love with Eric that there would be a price to pay and she was paying it.
She didn’t know how long she sobbed silently into her pillow, but she must have fallen asleep because she came to with Will shaking her.
“Blythe.” His face hovered over her. “You need to wake up. You’re going to be late.”
“Shit!” She rolled over and grabbed her phone. She was more than a little late. “Shit, shit, shit!”
Hopping out of bed, she dialed her first client and canceled. She threw herself into the shower and got dressed. Thank God her gym clothes were interchangeable because she barely paid any attention as she grabbed yoga pants and a shirt and wriggled into them.
She arrived in the kitchen to find Kim already eating her breakfast.
Blythe pressed a kiss on the top of her head. “Hey, Kim. How are you?”
“Good.” Kim chewed peanut butter and toast. “I made a new painting.”
“I’d love to see that, baby girl, but I’m running late.” Blythe smiled her thanks to Blake and sipped the coffee he had handed her.
Kim giggled. “You slept too late. Will didn’t know you were here. He told me you had a sleepover.” She cocked her head. “What happened to your sleepover?”
“I needed to get back to you guys.” She tried to keep it light, but a tremor snuck into her voice.
Blake crossed his arms and gave her a flat stare. “You okay?”
“I will be.” She snatched up the things she needed and shoved them into her bag.
“Go.” Will shooed her with his hands. “We’ll get Kim to kindergarten. You get yourself to work.”
“I’ll bring her home,” Blake said and handed her a piece of toast. “Go and make sure you put food in the bottomless pit that is Kim’s belly.”
“Hey.” Kim giggled. “You eat more than me.”
Blythe let herself out of the apartment to the sound of their good-natured argument. That small piece of normal gave her something to hang on to.
Her rush to work was a mixed blessing. As much as she hated being late, it also prevented her from having to think about the stone lodged in the center of her chest.
Beth, her client, arrived at the same time as her, and they went straight into their session.
A text came in halfway through Beth’s time, but she didn’t check it until she had said goodbye to Beth.
Eric’s name on her phone made her heart stutter. Yesterday he had discovered his contact deleted from her phone and insisted on putting it back. He had laughingly refused to let her delete it again.
Morning. I woke up to no Sweet Thing?????
Blythe closed the text and turned her phone off. It would be too easy to reply, too easy to slip back into what they’d had before, too easy to take what she could get and keep wishing for what she would never have.
* * * *
Eric stared at his phone and swore. She’d read the text. He could see she had. Yet she didn’t reply.
When he had woken up and found her gone, it had been worse than a kick in the nuts.
He made himself coffee and took a few of the pain tablets. As good as last night had been, his body was still reminding him of the pounding it had taken.
“Fuck.” He sipped his coffee.
Blythe was back on the run again. He really should have know better than to assume he’d managed to slide beneath those gargantuan walls of titanium she had built between them.
It didn’t help that she’d built those goddamn walls because of him. If he’d realized sooner what he had, and what she meant to him, she would never feel the need to protect herself from him.
Well, he was going to have to sack up and channel his inner Noel. Blythe was worth fighting for and he was up for the fight. The alternative, as in not having her in his life, he wouldn’t even consider.
He pulled out his computer and got a bit of work done from home. By lunchtime she still hadn’t called or texted back and it looked like he might have to take more direct action.
Feeling like a wimp, he took a nap and woke up starving around four.
There was a whole pot of Blythe’s soup left and he put it on the stove to reheat. Tomorrow he could get back to work and see what he could find out about whoever had done this to him.
A knock on the door interrupted him and he went to answer.
Brett stood on his doorstep, hands shoved into his pockets.
“Hey.” Eric opened the door and motioned him inside.
Brett stepped into his house and stopped. Taking a slow circle, he whistled. “I really should have spent more time in school and less time learning how to jack cars.”
“But the carjacking did give you an intensive course in street fighting.” Eric led the way into his kitchen. “A course I am very grateful for, by the way.”
“You didn’t do so badly.” Brett smirked. “For a suit.”
Eric shook his head but took the shit. Brett had saved his ass. “Want a beer?”
“Sure.” Brett perched on a barstool looking like he was afraid he might break something.
“I’m glad you’re here.” Eric put a beer in front of Brett. “I don’t know if I got around to thanking you. For the other night.” He raised his own beer to Brett. “Let me know if there are any consequences from saving my ass, in terms of your parole.”
“Nah.” Brett sipped and looked about him. “Your brother sorted it out. Sheriff Evans is okay. For a cop.”
Eric stirred the soup. “You had dinner yet?”
“It’s four thirty.” Brett raised his eyebrow.
“Then let’s call it an early bird special and eat,” Eric said.
Brett leaned over the counter and looked at the soup. “That looks like a soup Blythe used to make.”
“Huh.” Eric sipped his beer. “Weird.”
“Actually there is something you can do for me,” Brett said. “If you were feeling grateful that I saved your life.”
“Saved my life, huh?” Eric suppressed a grin. “I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say saved my life.”
“I would.” Brett grinned and sipped his beer. “They were totally kicking your ass.”
“True that.” Eric nodded to concede the point. “What do you need?”
Brett jerked a thumb at the soup. “Blythe,” he said. “I want to talk to her.”
“Why?” Eric’s protective instincts roared to the surface.
Stilling, Brett stared at him. “What’s it to you?”
“I think you know the answer to that.” He held Brett’s flat stare.
On an exhale, Brett dropped his gaze and shrugged. “I just want to talk to her. Nothing else. Want her to know that I regret what I did to her, and that I won’t hurt her again. She doesn’t need to be scared of me.”
Despite every horror story Blythe had told him about Brett, Eric believed him. The man sitting in front of him now showed true remorse.
“I’ll try,” he said and grabbed two soup bowls. “But in the interest of full disclosure, you should know that she’s not taking my calls right now either.”
“What did you do?” Brett’s head snapped up.
If only it were that simple. Eric huffed a laugh.
“She doesn’t trust me.”
Brett grunted and dug into his soup. “That’s not exactly surprising. This may totally blow your mind, but our Blythe hasn’t exactly had the best male role models in her life.”
“You don’t say.” If it had been about anyone else but Blythe, Eric might have laughed.
“She’s scared shitless she’s going to end up like our ma.” Brett tore the bread roll Eric had given him into pieces and popped one into his mouth. “Ma has basically hung about in a shit marriage to an abusive man for her entire life.”
“I guessed as much.” Not that guessing had taken any genius. Most of Ghost Falls knew how it went with Mrs. Barrows. “Blythe thinks I can’t commit.”
“Can you?” Brett stopped eating and stared at him.
Eric owed him the honest truth. “If you’d have asked me that a month ago, I would have said no. But she left me, and suddenly being committed seemed a whole lot better than being without her.”
Nodding, Brett got back to his soup. “You’ll do, Eric Evans.”
“Like you’ve any right to judge.”
It took him a moment to realize the gravelly sound was Brett laughing. “You see it’s real simple for me. I look at a guy and compare him to me. If he’s even close, then I break him before I let him anywhere near my sisters.”
“You’ve met Kim?” Eric found Brett’s statement unbelievably sad.
Pushing back his empty bowl, Brett shook his head. “Nah. Blythe doesn’t want me anywhere near her. I’ve been by the church kindergarten a couple of times to see her. She’s a dead ringer for Blythe at that age.” He gave a wry laugh. “Reminds me of how fucking sweet she was.”
“She still is.” Eric finished his soup and loaded the dishwasher. Thinking about Blythe’s sweetness set up a dull ache in his chest. She’d left his house only that morning, and already he felt her absence. “She just keeps it well hidden.”
“You think?” Brett’s face was deadly earnest, his gaze intense as if he needed to believe what Eric said more than he needed his next breath.
“Yeah.” Eric nodded. “I know. The trick is getting her to let you near enough to see it.”
“It eats me up. The thought that maybe I’ve killed that in her,” Brett said. “When I look at Kim, I see a chance to do better. To do right by her.”
Looking at Brett Barrows nobody would believe this conversation. Brett looked every inch the ex-con and thug, the man who had grown up dirt poor and scrabbling to get ahead.
Eric remembered Brett from before his last prison stint. That must have been quite some fucking epiphany.
His phone rang, and Eric picked it up. “Evans.”
“Eric,” a man said. “This is Michael from St. Peter’s here. I got your number from Bella.”
“Yeah.” Eric’s sense of bad news prickled. “What can I do for you?”
“Listen, I can’t get hold of Blythe or Will, or even Blake,” Michael said.
Eric looked at Brett. “Is something wrong with Kim?”
Brett shot up.
“No, she’s fine,” Michael said. “It’s just that they’re wanting to shut the aftercare for the day, and Kim is still here.”
Chapter Thirty
Blythe thought she might lose her shit when Eric strode into the gym as she wrapped up her last appointment for the day.
He caught sight of her and made a beeline.
She should have known better than to think he would take the hint of her not answering his text. Knowing he would follow, she turned and walked into her office.
“Blythe—”
“No.” She shut the door behind him. “You need to listen to me. You can’t keep showing up—”
“Blythe.” He stepped right into her space and forced her to look at him.
His serious expression stopped her, and she got the nasty sense that all was not well. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Not—”
“Is it Kim?” She grabbed his arm. “Will?”
“Listen.” He grabbed her hands and held them. “Everybody’s fine but I got a call from Reverend Michael.”
The room lurched around her. “Oh God, it’s Kim.”
“Kim is fine.” Eric cupped her face. “She’s fine, now breathe. Michael called me and said nobody has been to pick her up and they want to shut the daycare center.”
Blythe dug out her phone. “Why didn’t he call?” Because she’d had her phone turned off all afternoon. She grabbed her bag and her hoodie. “Thanks for telling me. I’ll go and get her.”
“I’ll drive you.” Eric took her bag.
She had to run to keep up with his long strides. “My car is just outside.”
“Either I follow you or drive you.” Eric turned and looked at her.
He meant it as well, and Blythe didn’t have time to argue. She needed to get to St. Peter’s.
As a child, she’d never known if someone would pick her up or she would have to make her own away home. But Kim wasn’t her. Kim didn’t know how to walk home on her own.
When she saw her brothers, she would bang their damn heads together. They knew how she felt about Kim growing up with the sort of uncertainty they had.
They knew. They should have picked her up, or called or made a damn plan, but Kim came first.
While Eric drove, she called Will first. His phone went straight to voicemail. The same with Blake.
“I don’t understand.” She tried Will again. “Will and Blake said they would sort out who picked her up.”
“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.” Eric kept his gaze on the road.
Blythe called Dixie. “Hey,” she said as soon as Dixie answered. “Have you heard from Blake or Will this afternoon?”
“No,” Dixie said. “What’s up?”
“One of them was supposed to pick up Kim from kindergarten and they haven’t.”
“Assholes,” Dixie said. “They probably forgot.”
“Probably.” Doubt crept around the edges of her anger. She hung up and stared out the windshield. She could maybe believe Blake forgot. “It’s not like Will.”
“Let’s get Kim first and then we can find out what happened to your brothers.” Eric took her hand and kissed it before placing it back on her thigh.
“Sure.” He was right and she needed to fetch Kim. She had plenty of time afterwards to fight with Eric about his high-handed take charge attitude. Beside which, it felt nice to have him by her side. And, no, she was not going to pick that apart.
When they reached St. Peter’s, Blythe hopped out the car and made her way around back to the kindergarten.
First she saw Kim, perfectly fine and chatting to the big man by her side.
Brett stood next to Kim.
Blythe froze and then she ran. “Get away from her!” She grabbed Kim by the hand and pulled her away from Brett. “Don’t you come near her.”
Raising his hands Brett stepped back. “It’s okay, Blythe. I’m just talking to her.”
“Take it down.” Eric came up beside her. “You’re frightening Kim.”
Kim blinked up at her, huge eyes in a pale face. “I’m sorry, Blythe. I was only talking to him.”
Blythe had to breathe in and out several times before she got her heartbeat under control. She could still not look at Brett. “I’m not angry at you, Kim.” She pushed Kim’s hair away from her face. “Can you wait for me by the swings?”
She waited until Kim did as she was told before she turned on Brett. Only her fear for Kim was greater than her fear of Brett. “You stay away from her.” She hated that her voice shook. “You stay away from her or I’ll get a restraining order.”
“Blythe.” Brett looked so sad, but she knew better than to fall for that. “I would never—”
“Hurt her?” Blythe took a step away f
rom him. She marched over to Kim and took her hand. “I’ve heard that one before, Brett.”
They stood by Eric’s car waiting for him.
Eric went up to Brett and spoke to him. Blythe couldn’t believe her eyes. She couldn’t believe Eric was falling for Brett’s bullshit. She had known how this would go the second she’d heard that Eric had given Brett a job.
Brett was a con man, a liar, just like their dad. Only Brett was a fuckuva lot better at it than Pat.
Clapping Brett on the shoulder, Eric turned back to them and opened the car.
The drive back to the gym and her car happened in a silence so tense that even Kim didn’t chatter.
Blythe put Kim into her car and closed the door before she confronted Eric. “You knew he would be there.”
“I was with him when Michael called.” Eric didn’t look in the least apologetic.
The shock of seeing Brett still pounded through her system, and she wanted to hit Eric and scream at him all at the same time. The depth of his betrayal also made her want to cry.
She kept a grip on it for Kim’s sake. No child deserved to witness the adults around her losing their shit. The world was a scary place for a kid when you didn’t trust the adults in charge to guide you through it. “How could you?” So trite but all she could manage. “You know how I feel about him.”
“I know, sweet thing.” Eric gripped her shoulders. “But you need to listen to me—”
“No, I don’t.” Blythe managed to keep her voice down, but she shrugged his hands off her. “You need to listen to me. Brett is a vicious bastard. He’s a criminal and a psychopath, and he’s really good at hiding both those things.”
Eric rubbed his nape and grimaced. “I really don’t want to fight with you about this. I know how much he triggers you, but I think you’re wrong about Brett.”
“You think I’m wrong?” Her voice rose to a shriek. “You think I’m wrong? Because you know him so well? You grew up with him and saw him in action every day until the police pulled him off you and took him away?”