I’d forgotten that, right up until the point when my cousin had seen that photograph and snapped.
“Take care of her,” I told Lily, nodding at Sadie-Grace. “I should go look for my mom. After all,” I added pointedly, “she’s trouble.”
Without waiting for a response, I walked away. I was mere feet from making my escape, when Walker Ames snagged me by the hand. I glanced back toward Lily, but she was already lost in the crowd.
The next thing I knew, I was on the dance floor. The music was the kind that brought people my grandmother’s age out. Frank Sinatra seemed to be the vibe they were going for, with a side of crooning Elvis and Nat King Cole.
“I’m not an expert at good Southern manners,” I told Walker, “but aren’t you supposed to ask me to dance?”
“That does seem like something we covered in cotillion.” Walker settled his free hand on my lower back. “But this way, if you feel like insulting me, you can do it away from prying ears.”
“Maybe I don’t feel like insulting you.”
Walker pretended to be shocked. “Does this have anything to do with your scandalous mother’s scandalous reappearance in society?”
“Walker?”
“Yes?”
“Shut up.”
He spun me out and didn’t speak again until I’d spun back in and my hand was safely trapped within his own.
“Lily’s worried about you,” he commented.
“Since when are the two of you on speaking terms?” I shot back.
“She needed someone.”
I gave him a look. “Given your history, she probably didn’t need for that person to be you.”
I told myself that I wasn’t being protective of Lily. I was simply stating the obvious.
“You’re probably right,” Walker admitted. “It took a long time and a lot of effort to convince her she’s better off without me.” He stared at me for a moment, an expression I couldn’t quite read in his eyes. “I’d hate to undo all of that in one evening.”
“Then don’t.”
One song faded into the next, but he didn’t give me the opportunity to break away.
“I had lofty ideas about comforting you,” Walker informed me. “Helping you and Lily patch things up.” He leaned me backward in a slight dip. “But you’re right. The part of me that wants to believe that I can be better, that I can swoop in and say all of the right things and be everything to everyone… that’s the dangerous part.”
My right hand was enveloped in his left. His other palm rested on the small of my back; he used it to to pull me closer.
“Walker,” I said lowly. “What are you doing?”
No matter what kind of fight Lily and I were having, she didn’t need to see this.
“A part of me will always miss being that guy, being a good guy.” Walker’s body was nearly touching mine now. “Maybe what I need—what Lily needs—is someone to help me remember that I’m not.” Walker paused. “Maybe what you need is a distraction.”
The song ended, and as easily as he’d gotten me out to the dance floor, he guided me to the hall. The light was dimmer here, but I could very clearly make out the plant that hung overhead.
Mistletoe.
“Walker, what are you—”
“Kiss me.”
He had officially lost his mind. “Pass.”
“Just once,” Walker insisted, his voice quiet and rough. “Just now. I could want this, if I let myself. I think you could, too. And Lily…”
Lily would know that you’re not a nice guy.
“You are unhinged,” I told him. I forced myself to take a step back. I should have torn a strip off him.
I didn’t.
Eyes still on mine, he shuddered, and the next thing I knew, the two of us weren’t alone.
“There you are, Walker.” His mother greeted him with a hug that struck me as territorial more than a sign of affection. “Your grandfather wants to get another photograph in front of the tree—just him and the grandchildren this time. Be a dear and find your sister and Boone, would you?”
The would you? somehow made it crystal clear that this wasn’t a request.
“I haven’t seen Campbell since we got here,” Walker replied.
His mother gave his arm a little squeeze. “Then I imagine you should get to looking.”
There was a moment when it seemed like Walker might push back, but he didn’t. Instead, he made eye contact with me one last time, then left. I made a valiant attempt at taking my own leave, but Walker’s mother slid to block my exit.
“You look lovely tonight, Sawyer. Just lovely.”
I wasn’t sure which was more foreboding: the fact that she’d opened with a compliment, or her tone.
“You’re not as put together as Lily is, I suppose, but you do have a certain charm.” Charlotte touched the ends of my hair lightly, then tucked a stray strand behind my shoulder. “You’re different. You’re new. Most of these kids have known each other since they were in diapers. When your aunt Olivia went into labor with John David, your uncle dropped Lily off at my house. We had an impromptu slumber party—Lily and Campbell and Sadie-Grace. We did the same when Sadie-Grace’s poor mama passed when the girls were tiny, and of course I had Walker and Boone and a whole passel of little boys at my house as often as not.”
“Sounds nice,” I said flatly, because it did—and because I knew that the subtext here wasn’t nice at all.
“You weren’t a part of that,” Charlotte continued, like I needed the reminder. “Your mama left. If Lillian had raised you, things might be different, but as it is, you’re a bit of an oddity. I’m not saying you’re odd, of course—”
“Of course not,” I put in dryly.
“I’m just saying that I can see how my son might find you… intriguing.”
“As absolutely charming as this has been,” I said, mimicking her style of speaking, but not her tone, “I really should be going.”
I tried to walk past her, but she caught my arm—hard. Her manicured fingertips dug into my skin and the pads of her fingers pressed down into the bone with affectionate, bruising force. “Your mother has no business being here tonight.”
Far be it from me to point out the obvious, I thought, but…
“I’m not my mother. Maybe you should talk to her.”
Charlotte’s grip on me didn’t loosen. She had about half a second to change that before I loosened it myself.
“Stay away from my son.” Her voice was barely audible, but in no way could it have been described as a whisper.
“Maybe you should tell your son to stay away from me,” I suggested, tearing my arm from her grip. “He’s the one with the hair-trigger self-destruct button.”
“You and Walker…” She stepped toward me. “It’s just wrong.”
There is no me and Walker, I thought, but I didn’t say it, because suddenly, my mouth was dry. Suddenly, I couldn’t feel the ghost of her grip on my arm.
I couldn’t feel anything.
“Wrong,” I repeated, struggling to hear my own voice over the echoing in my ears. “Walker and I… would be wrong.”
She said nothing, but the look on her face gave away the game. You and Walker, it’s just wrong.
I knew then. I knew, but I had to be sure.
“Wrong,” I repeated a second time, “because I’m trash?” My heart jumped into my throat, beating out an incessant rhythm that warned me against continuing. I did it anyway. “Or wrong because your husband is my father?”
harlotte Ames didn’t answer my question, and that was almost answer enough. When she turned to walk away from me, I couldn’t hear anything but the thudding of my own heart. The party, what Walker had just tried to pull, my fight with Lily—it all felt about a thousand miles away.
I willed my legs to propel me back toward the ballroom, but instead, I found myself running for the nearest exit.
I asked the senator’s wife if he was my father, and she didn’t deny it.
She didn’t deny it.
She didn’t deny it.
The next thing I knew, I was barefoot and staring at the valet stand a hundred yards away. I’d come out a side exit, but under the main archway, I could see people beginning to trickle out of the party.
I thought about the fact that in a different world, Nick might have been up there parking cars—if Campbell hadn’t framed him.
Campbell. Even thinking her name hit me like a sucker punch. I had known that her dad was on my list. I hadn’t ever thought, in any real way, about what that might make her to me.
What that might make Walker to me.
I asked the senator’s wife if he was my father, and she didn’t deny it.
“Baby?”
I turned to see my mom standing behind me on the lawn. She took one look at my bare feet and kicked off her own heels. “Anything you’d like to share with the class?”
That was her way of asking if I was okay. Now she wanted to know.
“Did Charlotte say something to you?” my mom pressed. “I swear to God, she is an even bigger bitch than I remember.”
“Maybe that’s because you slept with her husband.” The words were out of my mouth before I’d decided to say them.
“Sawyer!” My mom stared at me. “That’s not how we talk to each other.”
“Is Sterling Ames my father?” I asked. Once the question was out there, I couldn’t take it back. I didn’t try to. “His wife warned me away from their son.”
“You and the Ames boy?” My mom’s eyes widened. “Oh, honey, you can’t—”
“I’m not,” I said emphatically. “But when I asked Charlotte Ames if the reason she was warning me away from her son was because we have the same father, she didn’t deny it.”
My mom stared at me, saying nothing.
“Is Sterling Ames my father?” I asked again. I needed to hear her say it. “Is he—”
“Yes.”
One word. Just one. After all these years, that was the sum total of what I got. Yes. The senator was my father. Lily’s ex-boyfriend was my brother. And Campbell—scheming, diabolical Campbell—was my sister.
Half-sister.
“That’s all you have to say?” I asked my mom. “Yes?”
“What else do you want?” No one did flippant like my mom. “A play-by-play of our sexual encounter?”
She said that like she was joking. Like none of this mattered.
“I had a right to know,” I said, hearing in those words how close my voice was to cracking.
“And now you do,” my mom said. “So you can come home.”
Come home? That was all she could say?
“Oh, sweetheart.” My mom pulled me into a hug, and I let her.
I let her, even though I didn’t know why.
“What difference would it have made if you’d known?” my mom asked, bringing my cheek to her shoulders and kissing the top of my head. “Your daddy didn’t want us.”
I found my voice again. “You asked him?”
She smoothed my hair back from my temple. “He knew I was pregnant. When I left town, he could have come after me. He could have chosen us, but even at seventeen, I wasn’t stupid enough to think he would. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need him—we didn’t.”
For as long as I could remember, it had been the two of us against the world. I took care of her. She loved me.
“We had each other.” My mom stepped back from the hug and took my chin gently in her hand. “It was enough, just you and me. We didn’t need anyone.”
The emphasis she put on that last word did not escape me.
“Anyone,” I repeated. “Like Lillian.”
Like any of our family at all.
“She’s the one who kicked me out,” my mom reminded me. “I don’t know what she and my sister have been telling you.…”
They’d said remarkably little, all things considered.
“Did she?” I asked suddenly. “Kick you out?” I paused and then rephrased the question. “Did Lillian cut contact, or did you?”
My mom stared at me. “I did what I had to do.”
“That’s not an answer, Mom.”
“She kicked me out.” My mom pulled herself up to her full height and stared me down. “When I told my mother that I was pregnant, the great Lillian Taft took over. You’ve lived with her. You must know how she can be. Of course Lillian Taft had a plan.”
My mom’s voice was rising. I wondered how much louder she would have to get before the partygoers exiting in the distance heard every word.
“She was going to take you.” My mom’s body shook with pent-up emotion. “Her grand plan was for Olivia and J.D. to raise you. Like I wasn’t even your mama. Like my sister would be better for you than me.” She lowered her voice slightly, but the intensity in her gaze never wavered. “I said no. You were mine, baby. Not your father’s, not anyone else’s. I told Lillian…”
She closed her eyes for just a moment.
“I tried to tell her that, and she told me to get out.”
I knew the rest of the story. My mom had driven until she’d run out of gas. She hadn’t gotten very far.
“She tried to apologize,” my mom bit out. “But there’s no coming back from that.”
It took me a second to process that statement. “Lillian apologized after she kicked you out?”
“Too little, too late. We didn’t need her. Or Olivia. Or anyone else.” My mom smiled. “What do you say?” she asked me. “Ice cream, then home?”
She made the suggestion so casually, so lightly.
“You told me your family kicked you out and never spoke to you again,” I said.
“They did,” my mom replied emphatically, even though she’d just gotten through telling me something different. “Why dwell on the past, Sawyer? You wanted answers. You got answers. Now you can come home.”
“What about Lillian?” I found myself asking. “Aunt Olivia? Lily?”
I half expected my mom to point out what I had earlier in the evening: that it didn’t have to be either/or. That even if I went back to her, they’d only be a forty-five-minute drive away.
“They aren’t your family, baby.” My mom gave me a sharp look. “I am.”
“What about college?” I asked.
She could have told me that I didn’t need Lillian’s money, that I could work for another couple of years, enroll at community college, put myself through school.
“You don’t need to go to college,” she said instead.
“What?” I couldn’t believe she’d just said that. And yet… I could. My mom wanted me to put all of this behind me and come home. We would be together, and that was what mattered to her—right up until the next time she took off.
“Sawyer?” My mom reached for my hand, but I pulled back. “Baby, after everything I’ve done for you…”
That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Not the fact that I’d found out who my father was here, like this, when she could have just told me. Not that she had unilaterally decided we were better off without family and lied to me about it my entire life. Not the way she full-on expected me to do exactly what she wanted, or the fact that she’d already made it clear that she was capable of going radio silent on me if I didn’t.
After everything I’ve done for you…
I loved her. I always had. I hadn’t ever expected her to be perfect. But no matter how hard I’d tried not to—I’d expected more than this.
“Mom,” I said, my voice actually breaking this time. “Go home.”
ackie came very close to asking this Nick character why he had been arrested. Twice. But it seemed bad form to admit that the only officer of the law in the room didn’t know why anyone in the vicinity had been placed under arrest.
“Was there something in particular you wanted to say to Miss Taft?” Mackie prodded Nick. If he could just direct this conversation a little…
Nick turned to the girl in question. “Incoming.”
&
nbsp; Incoming? Mackie puzzled over that. Incoming what?
“Excuse me, Officer.”
Mackie did not startle. He did not jump. He simply turned slowly to face the person who’d spoken behind him.
Another boy.
“I’m here for my sister,” the boy said—more order than statement.
Before Mackie could respond, the one called Nick leaned back against the bars of the cell and snorted. “Which one?”
loathe putting away Christmas decorations.” Lillian was standing on a stepladder, removing nutcrackers from the mantel and handing them down to me. “Every year, I tell myself that
I’m going to hire someone to decorate, and every year…”
“You realize that you can’t outsource Christmas?” I said dryly.
“Oh, hush.” Lillian finished with the mantel and made her way back down to solid ground. She studied me for a moment. “I appreciate the help.”
I heard the however coming about a mile away.
“However,” Lillian continued delicately, “I have to think that a girl your age has better things to do with your afternoon.”
“Nope.”
Lillian’s expression suggested that she was in the process of trying to be diplomatic, which was never a good sign. “Sawyer, the night of the Christmas party…”
Nope. Nope. Nope. It had been two weeks, and I still didn’t feel like discussing anything that had happened that night. It was no secret that my mom and I had fought, but Lillian had no idea what the two of us had fought about. When I’d told my mom to go home, she had. She’d left, and she hadn’t looked back.
“Did something happen between you and Lily?” my grandmother asked.
Oh, I thought. That.
My mom had left me standing barefoot outside the clubhouse. Eventually, I’d found my shoes and returned inside. The first person I’d seen was Lily, and for a split second in time, I’d felt relieved. I might have pushed her away earlier, but when I’d needed someone…
My cousin had marched up to me and told me that I was no better than my mama.
I felt like she’d kicked me in the teeth, like everything leading up to that moment had been Lily being polite, not Lily being family—or my friend. I hadn’t managed to put together what had happened until the next day, when Sadie-Grace had told me that “everyone” had been talking about my dance with Walker. The ubiquitous everyone had seen him pull me closer.
Little White Lies Page 20