by Tessa Bailey
His laugh was rife was disbelief. “Where is the money? Who are you?”
Peggy ducked past Aaron, blocking his view of Grace where she finally gained her feet in the closet. “Hey. Why don’t you back off?” His sister stared at him hard. “What is wrong with you?”
I don’t know. Saying those three words in his head started a dull ache behind both eyes. How many times had he asked himself that same question? Come up with the same answer? In a family full of people who couldn’t manage their goddamn emotions, couldn’t help but act on those emotions—whether it be burning down a restaurant or leaving four pathetic suckers at the altar—he was the one who saw everything through cut-and-dried analysis. His mind made his decisions, probably because he didn’t have a heart big enough to perform the job. It had worked for Aaron, kept everyone from trying to peel back layers and be disappointed by what they found.
“Apologize to her,” Peggy whispered furiously, bringing him back to the moment with the force of a catapult. “For what you said. Apologize.”
He hesitated. Aaron hesitated because he knew. If he looked into Grace’s newly distant green eyes and said I’m sorry, he might mean it. He’d have to face hurting her feelings—head on—and take responsibility for that damage. God, nails were already digging into his kidneys at the very idea. Being responsible for someone else’s feelings? Jesus Christ. No. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t acknowledge how bad he’d fucked up, because that would mean she meant something to him.
Admitting to a mistake or a weakness meant an exchange of power. It opened the door for people to find his other faults, which was why he used a reinforced steel padlock to keep the entrance shut. His focus needed to be on tonight’s dinner, not worrying about making someone sad, for the love of God.
Hardening himself, Aaron turned from the closet and retrieved the vodka, pouring a second dose into his paper cup. “Look, we don’t have time for this. I only have the afternoon to prepare for my meeting.” His neck prickled when Peggy and Grace walked out of the closet behind him. “We might be harboring a fugitive. A fugitive with a high level of security clearance. I’d kind of like to find out why, so why don’t we stop worrying about how everyone feels?”
“Who said we’re worried about how everyone feels?” Peggy murmured for his ears alone. “Maybe that’s just your conscience talking.”
The vodka burned in his stomach. “I never claimed to have one.”
“Yeah? The lack is showing,” said Peggy, sitting down on the bed and patting the spot beside her. Not for him, but for the girl still standing by the closet. In anticipation of Grace entering his line of sight, Aaron held his breath, but the floorboards creaked near the door instead, tying knots in his muscles.
“Where are you going?” Aaron rasped, feeling her imminent departure like a blow to the midsection.
She settled a hand on the doorknob, hair shielding her face until she tossed the wealth of it back, giving his eyes access to the smooth angle of her chin, the round tip of her nose. Vivid green eyes that he somehow knew would get darker, turn a mossy color, while he moved inside her, angling his hips to get her off hard. “If you feel the need to report your side of things, you should do it. I would never ask anyone to lie for me. Ever.” There was finally a flicker of recognition when she looked at Aaron, but it died almost immediately. “I thought there was something a little magic about meeting someone in the forest at night. Meeting…you.” She shifted side to side. “If wondering about things like magic makes me not normal, I think I’m okay with that. But I don’t have to wonder about you anymore.”
The pressure in his sternum ratcheted up, like a giant bolt being turned. Her name wanted to be called, he could feel the weight of it on his tongue, so he bit down hard. And when the door opened to reveal Belmont, Aaron tasted blood. Grace’s head was still turned in his direction, so she attempted to walk through the door without looking—and ran smack into Belmont, bouncing off his immovable frame like a bird hitting a sliding glass door.
With a ripped expletive, Aaron dropped his cup of liquor and dove forward, just managing to insert himself between Grace and the floor before they could meet, catching her in his lap. The firm curve of her ass felt like it was locking home against his groin, right where it was meant to be. Clearly stunned, Grace looked up at Aaron, wind-reddened lips parted…and the room started to spin with his regret, his arousal, the betrayal that radiated from her. Clean, churned earth scent crept up and wrapped around his neck, and he couldn’t stop himself. Couldn’t prevent his fingers from winding through her hair, his palm from conforming to the side of her face.
“I didn’t mean it, hippie.” He fisted the locks of hair, watched awareness color her cheeks. “I didn’t mean it.”
Grace stared back at him for a moment that simultaneously stretched forever and ended all too quickly. He caught just the beginning of a moving sheen in her eyes, gutting him. Then she was gone, her tangled strands freeing themselves from his hands, her body sliding off his lap, before she rushed to her feet and vanished through the doorway.
The shocked scrutiny surrounding Aaron rushed in, making him all too aware of his slumped position on the floor, the way he stared out into the midmorning light, wishing he knew where the fuck Grace had gone. Hating that he’d forfeited his right to ask. That could very well be it. He would probably never see her again. Fighting through a wave of nausea, Aaron surged to a standing position and straightened his collar.
“Can I use the Suburban tonight?” He leveled the question at Belmont. “Or were you planning some brooding drive through the countryside.”
Without answering, Belmont slid the thick silver key—attached to a rabbit’s foot keychain—from his pocket and tossed it to Aaron, who caught it midair. His brother was watching him with both eyebrows drawn like he gave a shit, and Aaron couldn’t even remember the last time they’d made eye contact. Oh, this was the moment his brother chose to change up their dynamic? When he was already swimming laps in some unfamiliar emotional deep end? Well, he didn’t have room just then to wonder what the fuck Belmont was thinking. Or what his brother wanted to see in him instead. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be there.
“What is it, Bel? Huh?” Aaron snatched his jacket and tie off the bed. “Did you find something about that entertaining? I guess you’re not the only one who can make an ass out of himself over a girl, right?” God, he hated himself in that moment, but the roiling self-disgust only made him want to seal the deal. Finally make himself irredeemable with the Clarksons. Yes, with Belmont, the one who’d ended their association like a slammed door, decades ago. But the rest of them, too, because they’d followed suit. He could still recall the way they’d watched him at their mother’s funeral with varying degrees of astonishment, possibly even disgust. He’d been the only one who could function that day. Shaking hands, smiling, performing his role. Or that’s what he’d thought until he’d seen Rita and Peggy watching from the front pew, staring as though he were some kind of exotic reptile at the zoo.
Maybe I am, he’d thought. If I can still operate as though I feel nothing, maybe I don’t. Maybe I don’t need to. Maybe that’s what his father and Belmont—and yes, even Miriam to a degree—had seen in him all along. Someone like you.
Aaron swallowed hard. Just then, he needed the attention on him placed elsewhere. Preferably on his brother, who apparently only gave him the time of day when disappointed. So much of Aaron’s focus during the trip had been keeping attention off Belmont. Finding motels off the beaten path, smaller populated towns to stop in for food. Concessions the family had always made without a formal discussion ever since the day Belmont had been pulled from an abandoned well, after being missing for four days. Well, Aaron was flat out of concessions at the moment. He wanted banishment. How else would he stop imagining the feel of Grace on his lap? Stop hearing her condemnation, gentle in its delivery, but damning nonetheless.
“Looks like I’m rid of my girl, Bel. But what about yours? You going to
make a move on Sage? Or wait for a better opportunity than this endless goddamn road trip?”
Belmont’s eyes burned like two coals, the hands Aaron knew to be veritable weapons fisting at his sides—but it wasn’t Aaron’s brother that snapped him out of his rage. Sage’s hand cracked across his face, which had the effect of cables being cut on an elevator. His anger plummeted and smashed to pieces, leaving nothing behind. Just nothing. He was empty of all things, unless a continuous image of Grace tucked into herself on the closet floor counted.
It did. It counted.
Aaron watched as Belmont came up behind Sage, taking hold of her wrist like it was an alien object, and leading it back to rest on his shoulder. Watching it sit there through steady eyes, as if it were the most fascinating appendage he’d ever seen. Sage went from bristling to breathless in a split second and Aaron couldn’t—couldn’t—witness any more of the naked emotion. Couldn’t take another reminder of what he very obviously lacked.
“We could sell tickets to this fucking freak show,” Aaron quipped on his way to the door, but his accompanying laugh cut off as soon as the door closed behind him. And he walked to the other cabin wrapped in the loudest silence he’d ever heard.
Chapter Four
Grace trudged up the driveway to her family’s estate, well aware that they’d probably already clocked her presence through one of its many bay windows. This wasn’t her first walk of shame—although it usually felt more like a walk of pride. Today was…different. Her spine refused to straighten, her chin wouldn’t lift as high. She didn’t have the usual head of steam that came as a result of executing one of her plans.
She’d been called crazy before. Even while attending art school. And that wasn’t easy, considering crazy had been rewarded at the Art Institute of Austin, which she’d attended for three years. After the fallout with YouthAspire when she was sixteen and the subsequent therapy she’d undergone in the name of healing and recovery, college had represented freedom. People who didn’t know her face or her story. A chance to reinvent herself, while exploring her urge to create.
Her parents had been optimistic that she would find like-minded people at art school and urged her to pick a focus. Painting, graphic design, sculpting. But none of those mediums had captured her attention. With the door to independence open, ideas had flowed in, but not in a way her professors could grade. Hanging hundreds of mirrors throughout one Austin city block overnight, leaving the city baffled over the culprit’s identity, had earned her a written report sent home from the university, calling her impulsive and directionless. Mostly because she’d found it difficult to put the reasons behind her first project into words, only knowing she’d hoped to reflect the world back on itself. Force people to look. At themselves…what was around them.
Instead of attempting to understand, Grace’s parents flew to Austin to secure a new therapist. They’d taken her actions as a sign that she hadn’t fully recovered from what happened at the camp. She’d made an effort with the new therapist, because it troubled Grace to see her parents worried. After sessions, she’d even felt unburdened. Healthier. One day, however, the woman had begun posing questions to Grace that sounded too familiar. Sounded like they were coming directly from her father. And she’d just known. The therapist was reporting back to her parents and pushing their agenda onto her through a third party. If she hadn’t known deep down they meant well—and hadn’t intended to replicate the type of brainwashing she’d experienced at camp—Grace would have followed her inclination to disengage from the Pendleton family.
Instead, she’d begun using art as her therapy. Her fellow students had backed off as rumors about her past made their way to Austin. Thankfully, she’d already lost herself in creating, engaging with the people of Austin, even if they didn’t know her identity.
When her father decided to run for president, her mother had flown to Austin and begged her to come home. Where they could keep an eye on her, make sure she didn’t do anything to injure his chances at the White House. Grace had been so thankful for the honesty, that her mother hadn’t tried to sugarcoat the truth for once, she’d agreed to remain with them through the election. So far, she hadn’t done anything to blacken the family name. But that didn’t mean she’d stopped creating in her own way. No, she’d merely amended her focus. In a way that wasn’t always well received.
Okay, never.
Grace came to a stop at the porch, letting the toes of her boots bump against the red brick. At least the trouble she’d courted today would distract her from the knife handle sticking out of her chest. Silly. How silly she’d been. She’d had what could only be described as a crush on Aaron—the world’s shortest crush, probably. That must have been why she’d read him wrong. Must be why his calling her crazy—a word to which she’d thought herself desensitized—had found the sensitized target she usually kept guarded.
One half of the oak double doors opened, finally forcing Grace to lift her chin. Her father stood outlined in the entrance, his forehead wrinkled, Grace’s mother standing at his elbow. She spoke in a hushed tone, probably begging him to go easy with whatever he considered a suitable punishment for stealing upwards of thirty thousand dollars. Grace felt a punch of sadness—not over the money—but for her mother constantly having to come to her defense. It was out of guilt, Grace knew. For sending Grace away during her sixteenth summer. Being the one to drop her off at the gate. Would her mother ever stop blaming herself?
“Come inside, Grace,” her father ordered, his military background threading through his tone. “I don’t wish to discuss something so embarrassing outdoors.”
Discomfort spread down Grace’s arms, making her fingers curl into the sleeves of her denim shirt, but she commanded her legs to climb the stairs. “I’m sorry if you find what I did embarrassing. That was never my intention.” Having finally reached the doorway, she swallowed hard and met her father’s eyes. “That donation would have only bought you thirty seconds of airtime. But it can be put to such better use elsewhere. I—”
“It’s not up to you to decide how the campaign spends money,” her father snapped. “Those people donated in the hopes of seeing me succeed, and your actions could do the opposite. You might as well be working for the competition.”
Leaving those words hanging in the air, Grace accepted a half hug from her mother and followed them into the house, toeing off her boots in the entryway with two thunks. She found her father pacing in his den, went inside, and closed the door. Knowing better than to speak first, Grace leaned back against the wall and waited.
“Marcus said there was another person with you—someone without a badge. Have you recruited help now to sabotage me?”
“No.” Grace kept her voice even through the spike in her pulse. “No, the guy was just lost and…you know I joke around with Marcus.”
Her father pinned her with hawk eyes, a too long beat passing. “He could have been a security risk, Grace. Don’t take it upon yourself to bring people into a secure event again.”
“Understood,” she breathed, silently praying her father would move on and stop asking questions about Aaron. He might have incorrectly referred to her as a crazy girl, but he’d been right about something else. Aaron wouldn’t have gotten off with a lecture if he’d been implicated in her crime. No, her father’s security team would have loved a chance to recoup the thirty grand by accusing someone other than Pendleton’s daughter.
“I wasn’t trying to sabotage you,” Grace continued. “You know I want you to win, just as much as anyone else. But you have me stuffed in the guesthouse. I can’t attend events like Mom and Emily. You keep me hidden and I understand why, but…” Tears clogged her throat, but she squared her shoulders and forced them back. If she cried in front of her father, the discussion would be over. “You’re running for office to make a difference. I feel the same need. My methods are just different.”
“They’re illegal.” The vein in his neck stood out. “I don’t know what else to do fo
r you, Grace. Honestly, I don’t. You hate us for what happened and now we’re being punished, is that right?”
“No,” she whispered. “Not at all. I—”
“I’m keeping you out of the limelight for your own good. Everything we do is for your own good.” He propped his right arm on the fireplace mantle and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “I’ve tried giving you space, didn’t want to keep you confined, but now I’m wondering if this campaign depends on it.”
Grace felt the color drain from her face. “What does that mean?”
“It means, starting tomorrow, you’ll have heavier security. No more running off into the woods or disappearing for long stretches.” He wouldn’t look at her. “It’s obvious you can’t be trusted.”
His words were like tiny explosions, detonating in the air next to her ears. “You know I can’t be…kept in one place too long,” she said, trying to keep her voice even and failing. “You know I’ll go—”
She actually almost said the word crazy, but stopped herself. Or maybe the stone lodged in her throat did the work for her. Either way, she couldn’t breathe around the restriction as her father walked to the door. “We can have another discussion if you return the money, but judging from the way you continue to stubbornly defy what this family stands for, I don’t see that happening. Nor would I know how to explain the sudden reappearance, courtesy of my own daughter.” He continued on his way, pausing before he reached the hallway. “We have a visitor for dinner tonight. Will you be joining us or should I have your meal sent out to the guest house?”
She should do the right thing. Smile and make the right comments at the perfect moments, just like her sister. But the prospect of potentially disappointing her father again, right on the heels of taking the money, made the air around her feeling cloying. “Guest house, please.”
A long pause. “You have to believe I didn’t want it to be like this, Grace.”