the moment felt insurmountable.
âYour family seems pretty happy about meeting Kolt,â Luke said. âI just donât understand why you ran off. Hell, youâd already graduated. Itâs not like half the kids we went to high school with werenât already headed for the altar.â Luke sat next to her, and their thighs brushed, flooding her with awareness. His radiant heat combined with guilt, making her chest ache from the effort to breathe.
Nodding, she said, âI know. And Iâd really appreciate you not reminding me every five minutes what an awful person I am.â
âFor what youâve done to meâour sonâyouâve got a lot more than a little chastising to contend with. My familyâs itching to lash into you. Itâll be a good time.â His speech ended with a condescending pat to her knee.
She hated him, so why did she feel each of his fingertips scorch through to her skin? Sheâd underestimated her former feelings for Luke. At a time when her whole world had been falling apart, heâd been her only solid ground. Now, when yet again her life had turned upside down, a long-buried part of her instinctively longed to turn to him for comfort and supportâstupid, considering he grabbed every opportunity to bring her down.
You think you donât deserve it?
It didnât seem possible that only a short while earlier,sheâd been a strong, confident woman, yet now her every doubt and insecurity had resurfaced. Each time someone entered the room, she feared facing Henry. Where was he lurking? Yes, keeping Kolt from Luke had been the worst of Daisyâs many bad decisions, but if Luke knew her true reason for escaping Weed Gulch, would he be any more sympathetic?
âYou donât have to stay,â she said quietly, not wanting to wake the twins whoâd crashed on the sofa opposite the one she and Luke shared. âIn fact, Iâm not sure why you chose to come at all.â
âSimple. I trust you about as much as my old farm truck that has three hundred thousand miles.â Nudging her shoulder, he added with a mean-spirited wink, âOnly youâve got less body damage.â
Rising, she said, âPlease, go. This reunion is hard enough, withoutââ
Also on his feet, meeting her stare from a perilously close position, he whispered, âGood. You stole my heart and then my son. I want you to feel every ounce of the hell youâve put me through. I want you to hurt, Daisy Buckhorn. And just when you might feel better, I want to drag you down again.â
Why, why, when Lukeâs speech should have incensed her, did Daisy recognize the scent of his breath? Sheâd once loved him more than sheâd thought it possible to love someoneâat least until a maternity-ward nurse had settled Kolt into her arms.
âThere arenât enough words to describe how I detest you. How youâve built this fabulous life for yourselfwithout so much as a thought for everyone you left behind.â
Silent tears streaming down her cheeks, Daisy hugged her arms over her chest. Nodding, she internalized his every critical word, negating years of supposedly successful therapy in mere seconds. Once again she was a little girl, hiding from a monster, begging to a nonexistent God for Henry not to touch her.
âDonât cry,â Luke said. âAll the tears in the world arenât going to change what I think of you.â
âIâI know. And IâI donât blame you for hating me.â I hate myself for ever letting that filthy old man near me. Most especially she hated still being afraid to share her darkest secret with the sole person sheâd always been able to trust.
Â
âIâ VE MISSED THIS ,â Daisy said to her mom Sunday morning while helping her roll out biscuit dough. âI feel like I can never apologize enough.â Eyes again filling with tears, she walked into her
Tim Curran, Cody Goodfellow, Gary McMahon, C.J. Henderson, William Meikle, T.E. Grau, Laurel Halbany, Christine Morgan, Edward Morris