by Diana Gardin
Violet’s hair was just as long as Hope’s, but hers was so pale blond it was nearly white. This week there were streaks of teal running through it, but next week it could just as easily be the purple that matched her name.
Her long fingers were nimble enough to brush out on a canvas the emotions their owner tousled with, and Violet used them to create the most beautiful, ahead-of-her-time paintings Hope had ever seen. There was a clutter of her work in a corner of the garage where they sat, and Hope glanced over at it as a smile tugged her lips upward.
She reached out and pulled a piece of her sister’s hair.
“Pretty color,” she mused.
“Mmmm,” Violet answered absently. She stared into the distance, and Hope tried to imagine as she watched those pale gray eyes, where her mind had wandered.
Had they been standing, Violet would have towered a few inches over her sister’s head, making her look three years older than she really was. Violet’s old soul made it impossible for Hope to keep her sister young.
“It went about as badly as any date could ever possibly go,” Hope finally admitted quietly. “But I don’t want you to worry about it, Vi. I’m home safe, and I promised I’d always come home to you.”
Violet turned her striking gray eyes on her sister. “I don’t think there’s a God.”
“What?” The comment was so casual, so off-kilter that it caught Hope totally by surprise. For the second time that night. She was beginning to feel an uncomfortable pattern forming.
“I don’t. If there was, he’d never let someone as good as you deal with the perpetual shit storm you’re constantly having to go through. And he’d never let me…you know.”
Hope sighed. “It’s a temporary shit storm, Vi. This won’t be our life forever.”
“Still.” Violet used a thumb to gently rub the dark bruises beginning to form on Hope’s wrist where Tyler had grabbed her. She stared down at her sister’s arm, her expression so forlorn it caused Hope physical pain to see it, and to know the meaning behind it. Protecting Violet from the life she led was so much more difficult than she wanted it to be. Than Violet deserved.
Still staring at their hands, Hope marveled once again at the differences. She imagined it had a lot to do with the fact that they had different fathers. Hope remembered Violet’s father clearly, although the younger girl couldn’t recollect anything about him. He had been a genius of an artist, the only quality other than his appearance the girl had inherited from him.
Hope could remember being fascinated by the fury with which he painted, probably the same fascination that had drawn her mother to him. But she also remembered that in order to paint with that sort of crazed ferocity, he had to be sky-high on meth. And she remembered the monster he became when his artistic efforts were exhausted, thanks to the drug. She clearly recalled the nights she cowered under her bed while her mother screamed obscenities at the man in the next room as he stole everything they owned in order to buy more of the poison.
Hope recollected nothing of her own father. She only knew what her mother had told her, which was nearly nothing. She knew that his South American heritage was what gave her the thick hair, which started out dark at her roots and lightened to almost blond at the ends; it was the ombré effect most girls paid hundreds of dollars in a salon to achieve. Her hair matched her sharp hazel eyes perfectly, and the olive tone to her skin set the whole look on fire. Her cheekbones were high and pronounced, and it helped to balance out the fact that her forehead was a bit too wide and her face a little too full.
Men found her terribly attractive, which was why her dating life came so easily to her.
Much to her revulsion.
“Are they waiting up for me inside?” asked Hope.
Violet nodded. “Yeah. Do you want me to distract them for you while you sneak upstairs?”
“No,” Hope answered, squeezing her sister’s hand once before letting it go. “I want you to go to bed and dream of shopping and boys, like normal thirteen-year-olds.”
Violet snorted. “I’ll never be normal.”
And a wave of sadness almost as large as the hatred she felt for her mother crashed over Hope, squeezing her lungs and leaving her gasping for breath as it subsided.
“Temporary,” she promised again.
They stood, and Hope wrapped an arm around Violet before they ascended the steps and entered the house. Violet flinched.
Stopping in her tracks, Hope turned to her sister. “Vi?”
Violet averted her eyes, staring down at the floor. Before she could pull away, Hope pulled the shoulder of Violet’s shirt down to expose her sister’s bare shoulder. A deep purple bruise stood out boldly against the milky skin.
“Oh, Violet.” Hope’s voice escaped in a tremulous whisper. “What’d she do?”
Blinking away furious tears, Violet began to mount the steps toward the house. “It’s nothing, Hope. Forget about it.”
“I never forget about it! How can I?”
When they arrived in the kitchen Violet whirled around. “You don’t have to focus on me. I’m usually better at avoiding her, okay? Just worry about you. And how you’re going to stop working this job.”
With a sigh, Hope watched her sister disappear up the back set of stairs and squared her shoulders as she turned for the long hallway that led to the living room.
“Hope.” Her stepfather Frank’s heavy voice accosted her as she entered the room. There was a dark undertone of danger in his words. “An unhappy client makes a very unhappy business owner.”
“Yeah, well a disgusting snake who puts his hands on me makes me a paying member of the unhappy club,” Hope snapped.
Frank and Wendy were standing near the window, staring accusingly at her as she waited in the doorway with folded arms. She would have laughed at her mother’s demeanor if it weren’t so infuriating. Wendy had been married to Frank for, what, a year? And in that time, she’d managed to adopt her worst personality yet. One that made it seem like she’d been a millionaire her entire life, as if she hadn’t been nearly evicted from a trailer right before she’d met Frank.
Wendy was a chameleon; she changed her color to match the surroundings she was placed in by whatever man she wrapped herself around at any given time.
“Well?” Wendy said, her voice sloppy with the effect of the liquor she’d surely consumed that night. “What do you have to say for yourself, Hope? If you did anything tonight to hurt Frank’s business, I swear to God—”
“What?” Hope spat. “You swear to God what? You’ll hurt my sister again?”
Wendy’s eyes narrowed to slits. Frank placed a hand on her shoulder to silence her.
“Do you know who’s on my client roster, Hope? Judges. Lawyers. Doctors. The mayor.” Hope’s heart plummeted down to her feet. “Who,” he continued, “would believe your lies?” Frank’s voice was steady, calm. Hope knew his placid demeanor was only a facade. Like the deep quiet before a tornado rolled over a town, leveling it to dust. “This is my business we’re talking about, Hope. I have high stakes here. What happened tonight?”
Hope sighed, suddenly feeling so tired she could have crashed right there on the hardwood floor with those two hovering over her like vultures. “He attacked me. I had no choice. What was I supposed to do? Let him rape me?”
“That’s not how Tyler tells it.” Frank’s deep voice slithered toward her like a python.
“Well, I’m your stepdaughter, and your highest-earning employee, so if I were you I’d listen to how I’m telling it. And that guy is a sleaze, not to mention dangerous. You should kick him out of the club.”
Frank stared at her for a full minute before he answered. He pulled himself up to his full, terrifying height. His eyes were cold, hard, and unfeeling. Hope shuddered inwardly as she stared right back.
“You will never, I repeat, never, disrespect a client that way again. If you have a problem with someone, you take it up with me and I will handle it. Do you understand?”
&nbs
p; “Oh, I understand perfectly,” said Hope. “Basically, next time you want me to come crying to you after I’m violated, and you’ll make it all better.”
“You ungrateful little bitch.” Wendy’s words stuck her like needles from where she stood. “I’ve taken care of you your whole life, and now I’ve given you all of this”—she gestured around them—“and you want to ruin it for us. It’s not going to happen. So you better get your shit together, young lady, if your little sister is as important to you as you say she is.”
Hope turned and began to exit the room. Her body was numb; every time Frank and Wendy threatened her with Violet it was like awakening from a TKO just to be punched in the face all over again.
“Who was this other man Tyler told us about, the one who interfered where he wasn’t welcome?” Wendy’s cold voice dripped down Hope’s neck as she walked away.
“No one, Wendy,” she tossed back over her shoulder to her mother. “He was no one.”
Three
There were a lot of aspects of Reed Hopewell’s life he couldn’t change, but living at the enormous ranch estate with his parents wasn’t one of them.
Aston and Sam dwelled happily in the tack house on his father’s property, but Reed couldn’t do it. He endured a complicated relationship with his father, and he couldn’t subject himself to the complexities of it now that he was an adult.
Reed stood out on the wide balcony of the condo he shared with Tate and gazed down at the waves crashing onto the sugary sand. He squeezed his mug of coffee tightly in both hands as he stared out over the ocean and thanked his stars that he hadn’t left Nelson Island. He’d loved attending college in a vibrant, historical city like Charleston, but dreamed of moving to a place more musically saturated like Austin or Nashville when he graduated. In the end, N.I. was his home. And he was a hometown kind of guy. Even if he became a success in the music industry, he knew he’d always have a home here.
He had no intention, however, to begin a family here. Reed knew that having a wife and children and a white picket fence weren’t in the cards for him. He loved it that his sister had found the right person for her and settled down, but he had no illusions about that ever happening for him.
He wouldn’t allow it to.
He sipped his coffee again and took in one more lungful of salty air before turning and padding back inside on bare feet.
Tate was still snoring behind his closed bedroom door, but he didn’t have to be up for hours yet. The job Reed reluctantly held at Hopewell Enterprises meant he was up and at ’em at sunrise. His daily mug of coffee came directly after his morning swim in the ocean just steps away from the condo’s stilts, and if the mood struck, he sat down to write a few lines before hopping in his truck and heading to work.
Driving over the bridge from Nelson Island to Charleston was a daily ritual he treasured. When he looked out over the water from the highest arc of the overpass, he could see where blue horizon met the even bluer ocean. When he was a little boy, he wondered what it would be like to journey to that place where the two met, the place that he imagined heaven would be. Blue on top of blue, solitude with only the music of the waves for company.
He had been an escape artist as a boy, always finding new ways out of the gigantic home where tension between his parents and his sister always seemed to run high. Reed would sense his sister’s distress and he would climb out a window, shimmy down a trellis, or walk right out the back door and disappear onto the acres of property behind the home.
Now, although he knew he couldn’t disappear to that lonely spot, he still loved to stare off into that horizon while he drove from the town he loved into the city where he did his living.
“Good morning, Reed,” Lena said brightly as he strolled past her desk with his hands in his pockets.
“Lena.” Reed smiled at his assistant. “What does a hick like me have to do to get his assistant to call him Mr. Hopewell?”
Returning his wink, she shrugged from her place behind her desk located just outside his door. “A hick like you needs to start signing my paychecks.”
Lena appraised Reed, shaking her head as her eyes ran up his body slowly. “When the real Mr. Hopewell sees you, he’s going to inwardly cringe with disappointment, compare you to your perfect sister, and then offhandedly ask you about your show this weekend as he silently prays it was a disaster.”
Reed nodded. “That’s about right, Lena. But what the hell is wrong with my outfit?”
He evaluated his slim pin-striped pants and signature black boots. He had paired them with a tight, dark gray tee under a form-fitting black vest. His silver belt buckle peeked out from beneath. He thought he looked very put-together, while still being completely himself. And, at his father’s demand, all his tats were hidden from view.
“Really, Reed?” Aston asked as she breezed past them and opened Reed’s office door. She walked inside with sharp clicks of her heels, and Reed stuck his tongue out at Lena as he reluctantly followed his sister inside.
“Really, Reed?” he mimicked. “Aren’t you sick of saying that to me? Shit, I’m here, ain’t I?”
“Barely,” Aston muttered. “This isn’t Cali, Reed. We don’t wear T-shirts to work in Charleston.” She gestured down to her own impeccable pencil skirt and ruffled blouse and grinned.
“Daddy’s gonna hate it,” she said in a stage whisper. “But I think you look stellar, as usual.”
He smiled and locked an arm around her neck, squeezing her close as she squealed. “Thanks, sis. Love you, too.”
“So, Lena has the spreadsheet with the info on those calls you’re supposed to make to London today. I’m so glad you’re here to handle all those conference calls now. I kind of hate talking to people, and your ‘life-of-the-party’ outlook is finally coming in handy for a change.”
“And you thought I’d never be useful,” Reed teased as he sat at his desk and flicked on his computer.
“So, how’d the rest of the night go on Saturday?” Aston asked, perching on the corner of his desk and picking up the framed photo of the two of them.
“It was…eventful,” Reed answered. “Drank some, talked to some chicks…you know the routine.”
“Uh-huh,” she answered. “I’m assuming Tate made it home in one piece, since Sam and I didn’t receive a call from the ER.”
“He did indeed,” Reed said. “We’re not as much of a train wreck as you’d like to think.”
“Yes you are,” she retorted. “Seriously, Reed…”
He groaned, and she giggled.
“Okay, fine. Really, Reed,” she began again. “You’re twenty-three years old. I know you love the music thing and you’re really good at it. It’s time to decide…are you going to make a life with us here at the company or are you going to get out there and do the singer-songwriter thing full-time? It’s now or never, little bro.”
He studied her hard, staring at her face until she finally shrieked at him.
“What?”
“Oh.” He jumped, appearing startled. “I was just trying to figure out the exact moment you turned into our mother.”
Those were fighting words to Aston. He watched her face turn from pink to red to purple, and she spluttered angrily as she tried to find the right combination of curses to send him spinning into oblivion.
Reed raised his hands in a sign of surrender. “I’m sorry. You were being such a damn boss, though, you kinda deserved it. You’re not Mom, A. I swear, I take it back.”
She spun on her heel and stalked toward the door.
“You know what else would help you with your whole growing-up process?” she threw back over her shoulder. “Quit sleeping with the female population of Charleston and get yourself a real woman in your life.”
He jumped as she slammed the door, and then grinned as the company messenger icon popped up on his computer with a ding.
Lena: What crawled up her ass and died?
Reed: Hard to say. It’s a different critter every day, is it
not?
Lena: LOL
He laughed softly and began to read over the files Lena had e-mailed him this morning about his international call on the calendar for later that day. As he was studying the information, however, his brain began to wander. In his mind’s eye, he saw curved, tan legs stretching out under a short dress. An endless net of hair, so long it must have brushed that tiny, cinched waist, and impossibly clear hazel eyes set in the most delicate, beautiful face he’d ever laid eyes on.
He shook his head to clear it, and sat back in his chair. He stared toward his office window and reluctantly allowed himself to wonder about her. Has she seen that psycho again since Saturday night? Is she okay?
And…farther down the list…was she thinking about Reed like he was thinking about her?
The entire situation just rattled him. He’d never been anyone’s hero. That just wasn’t part of who Reed was. He was a lot of things, to a lot of people, but savior wasn’t one of them. Not once.
He was born and raised in the South, and he was innately a gentleman when it came to the general rules for treating a woman. He opened car doors, he pulled out chairs, and he let them walk through entries first. But he also loved them and left them, over and over again. The alternative, entering a relationship with someone and leaving himself vulnerable to the inevitable despair that came along with that, was something he just couldn’t do. He’d never be able to open himself up to someone that way. He’d seen the destruction it caused.
Just look at his parents.
Aston would argue that their parents were still together, so his logic was twisted. But they had endured a lot to be able to stay together, and Reed knew he just didn’t have the stomach for it.
Rescuing Hope the other night was out of character for Reed; he knew full well it was a circumstance that he wouldn’t find himself in again.
But what if he saw her again, just out and about in the city, and she didn’t need him to rescue her? What then? Would they speak to each other? Or would it be like they’d never met?