Chapter Twelve
Sawyer woke up early. Birds, bugs, and who knew what else chirped outside his window. Damn if the country wasn’t annoying as hell. Light from outside slinked around and under the curtains causing him to squint, trying to get his bearings in the strange room. Pain throbbed through his brain.
The digital clock, if it was right, informed him they had two hours to get to Liann’s house. He pushed himself up from the bed, where he’d fallen asleep on his stomach, flipping through channels. The covers were kicked off, and he was sore everywhere, like he’d been fighting in his sleep.
He shuffled into the bathroom, switched on the shower, and stripped off his jeans. Not a nightmare. Stupid memories he managed not to think about. After a bad day, or if he hadn’t slept much, he’d wake up feeling like shit, covered in sweat. The last thing he needed now, stuck in the middle of nowhere, with Justine a wall away and pissed as hell at him, was for that old garbage to surface.
He stepped in, trying to ignore the obscenely green soap-spotted tile surrounding him, and tilted his head back so the water could rain down on his face and clear his head. God, Justine. She’d been so beautiful, so close, so real. When her lips touched his face, something inside him wanted to grab hold of her and not let go.
But damn, the way she looked at him. No way he’d live up to that. If he weren’t a selfish bastard, he’d push her away. Like no turning back, never want to see him again, that kind of push. He should. She deserved a hell of a lot better than anything he could give her.
Except…he couldn’t.
He turned off the water and dressed as fast as possible. He wasn’t thinking about this anymore.
He walked out of his room and pulled up short. She wasn’t waiting for him by the car. Perfect. He turned back and pounded on her door. “Justine! We have to go, come on.”
She opened the door with a flash of red, wearing the damned robe that showed about a mile of leg. She gnawed on her bottom lip. “Get dressed, we have to go.” He turned away from the door and started to leave.
“Sawyer, wait. I—I can’t find anything to wear.”
He turned back to stare at her through the crack in the door. “Are you kidding me? You have a department store worth of clothes in there. Pick something.”
She opened the door a little more, looked around outside, and motioned him closer. “I’m serious. I don’t want to wear the wrong thing. This is really important, and I’m afraid I’ll screw this up if I give the wrong impression, so—”
He shook his head. God, he’d forgotten she was nuts. “Hey, slow down, take a breath.” He walked past her into the room. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
He pulled a dress off the rack beside the bathroom and held it out. “Wear this.”
“No, it’s too pink.”
“Then why do you own it?”
“Because sometimes pink is okay, but I think it’s too wishy-washy today.”
He stuffed it back on the rack and pulled out a black skirt and jacket. “This one?”
“Not personal enough.”
He jammed it back in and turned to look at her. Her skin looked translucent and every few seconds her chest hitched like she fought to breathe. “Justine, she’s going to love you, everyone loves you.”
“No, they don’t! Lots of people dislike me. Google me.”
He ignored her and went on. “It’ll be fine, and even if for some reason it doesn’t work out, I swear to you it won’t be because of what you’re wearing.”
She took a deep breath and took her time letting it out. When her shoulders relaxed, he realized she’d been tensed up, like an animal scenting a predator nearby. “Maybe. Maybe you’re right. Pick something else.”
He looked at the clothes, the colors all blending together, and chose randomly. “Wear this.” He’d pulled out bright red pants and a sheer top with a red flower print.
She shook her head, frowning. “I think that one—”
“Wear this one, or we’ll be late. And bring a jacket, it’s cold.” He turned and stalked out of the room.
A few minutes later, she came out, so stunning it was like a punch to his gut. Her curls trailed down her back, held back by a simple white band. She’d painted her lips a slippery red, and he fought the sudden urge to kiss her, hard, to take apart that jumble of sophistication and wildness. But kissing was off the table. Every time he kissed her, bad things happened.
She looked up at him. “Is this okay, you think?”
“It’s fine,” he mumbled, walking to the car.
Once inside, she watched the road, deep in concentration. He shifted gears and slowed down as they approached the shed to turn. “I thought you hated flowers.”
She glanced at him, eyebrows raised.
He pointed at her shirt. “Flowers.”
“I hate dull, pink roses. These are wild, red dahlias. They mean elegance. Or instability, which appeals to me, for obvious reasons.”
He snorted. “Yeah, I can see that. So we keep driving? Up that thing?”
“That thing is a mountain.” She nodded. “She said she lives up there.”
As they topped the last rise and reached the summit, they both stared. Liann lived in a huge cabin, with dark wood and glass, surrounded by trees and flowers and a sheer drop along one side. They climbed out of the vehicle and stopped to take it all in.
Liann Linell, at long last in person, opened the door and stepped out on to the porch that ran, as far as he could tell, around the whole house. She put her hands on her hips, tilted her head, and offered them a bemused smile. “Did you come to see me or the house?”
“Ms. Linell.” Justine smiled at her. “You, but the house is breathtaking.”
They approached the porch, and Sawyer put a hand on Justine’s back. She almost trembled with anxiety. She needed this win.
“Thank you so much for inviting us to your home. It’s enchanting. I keep waiting for a pixie to fly by. Maybe a couple of dwarves. Not that the dwarves would fly.” Justine looked around, turning a circle. “It’s amazing.”
Sawyer held back a little. He wasn’t supposed to help and that was fine. Justine needed to do this on her own, to know she didn’t need his help. If she didn’t figure that out, whatever was at stake here, she’d lose because, thanks to him and his spying, she’d lost whatever confidence she’d managed to muster.
Justine gestured to Sawyer and introduced him, then held out a hand to Liann. “And you know me. We’re so pleased to finally meet with you.”
The house, full of sunlight and big comfortable chairs, was impressive. As she led them through to the kitchen, he wondered why anyone would want to build a house this incredible on a mountain in the middle of nowhere. Hell, she probably stayed snowed in most of the winter. They sat at a table on wicker chairs with fluffy cushions and looked out through another wall of windows. The back of her home sat near the edge of a sheer drop, with miles of forest.
Liann put down cups and a pot of coffee on the table. Justine glanced at Sawyer, her eyes bright with nerves. He gave her a slight nod. You’re doing great, stop worrying.
“So are you two…a thing?” Liann raised her eyebrows and looked between them while she handed each a cup on petite saucers plastered with little, yellow flowers.
The cup in Justine’s hand clattered on the saucer, slopping steaming coffee on her fingers. She hissed and then sat it down on the table carefully. “Sorry,” she muttered.
Liann’s mouth twitched. “Get burnt?”
Justine lifted her gaze from the small puddle of coffee on the table to look Liann in the face. She exhaled like she was trying to push all her nerves out in one go. “We two are nothing. Sawyer doesn’t do messy, and I’m all kinds of messy.”
He took a deep drink of his coffee and glared at Justine, but she ignored him and went on. What the hell was that? She’d gone from charming, in her own nervous way, to straight on crazy. He shifted his gaze toward Liann, trying to get a read on her reaction.
She leaned back in her chair, eying Justine. “You’re mouthy, like your mama. It’s cute.”
“You remember my mother?”
“Oh, sure. The infamous Miss Beauty America, Althea…something. No matter, since she married one of the judges.”
Sawyer glanced between them. The energy in the room had gone strange in the last five minutes. He couldn’t tell if they were reminiscing or preparing to pull out the claws. He needed to diffuse whatever the hell this was turning into. He cleared his throat and jumped in. “Your dad was a judge at the thing?” The thing? The crazy must be leaking because now he was losing his words.
“He was.” Justine gave a curt nod in his direction but didn’t take her eyes off Liann. “But they didn’t start seeing one another until after she’d won. Although, I suppose having one of the judges fall in love with her from the stage didn’t hurt my mother’s chances.”
“And who told you that fairy tale?” Liann smiled politely over her cup before taking a small sip.
“I read it on Wikipedia.” Angling her body toward Liann, Justine laid her hands flat on the table. “The reason we wanted to meet with you is to discuss a business proposition.”
Jesus, she was going for it. He would’ve bet money they were going to start ripping each other’s hair out any minute instead.
“This is about some kind of work? This isn’t personal?” Liann smiled, a little coolly. “I’m out of the business.”
Justine rushed in, word tumbling out. “Sure, we know that. But this isn’t like anything you’ve done before. It’ll put you back on the map. We’re proposing that you co-host a morning talk show. Exciting, a little edgy, fun.”
“Honey, the business isn’t fun. People, fans are fun. Sometimes the people you work with, they’re fun. But the business, which is ninety-nine percent of it, is not at all fun.” She stood up from the table, taking her cup to the island in the center of the kitchen to look out the windows.
Justine followed her and stood there until Liann turned to face her. “I promise you, this would be different. We’re not like anybody you’ve worked with before.”
“That’s sure as hell true,” Sawyer mumbled from the table.
Recognizing when to cut her losses was not one of Justine’s strong points, so she pressed on. “This could be good for you.”
Liann banged her cup to the counter, the other hand flying into a fist on her hip. “I remember you, honey. Your daddy bought you a pony for your birthday when you were four. I was at the party. Daddy’s girl. Everything had to be perfect. It probably is all fun for you. The rest of us have to actually work.”
“Okay.” Sawyer stood up. “Lady, do you know when the next person will drive to this hell hole looking to offer you a job? About five minutes after never. Justine pushed for you against the better judgment of everybody. I went along with it, for the most part because she’s a little scary when she’s pissed. You don’t want us here, we’ll leave. But don’t talk to her like that. She’s the only one in the world who thinks you’re worth more than the crappy coffee your diner serves.”
Justine glanced at Sawyer then back at Liann. “It’s fine, Sawyer.” She licked her lips. “Let’s do this then. You were there? Do you remember I wasn’t allowed to ride the pony or touch the pony, because I might get hurt? Did you know it was shipped off the next day, never to be seen again?
“Also, do you not read newspapers? I have not had a girl-with-a-pony life, especially not the last few years. Everybody on the planet has seen me naked. Not fun. The guy, from the video? He couldn’t get away from me fast enough. Not after my father offered him the very generous Montgomery Scholarship. It was a new program for young men of modest means who had fucked his daughter to get an education…on the other side of the country. That was some pretty intense not fun. I could go on, for longer than it would take the cops to get here to throw me out, but I’ll spare you the details. The point is, I’m trying to make a fresh start.”
“By working for your father?”
Sawyer kept quiet reminding himself Justine could take care of herself. Obviously. The two women were sizing each other up, so Sawyer took the opportunity to study the older woman.
“This job wasn’t the only game in town for me, believe it or not. It was just the best chance I had to make some things right. I thought someone like you might appreciate that.”
“Someone like me. A drunk, you mean?”
Sawyer crossed the room and took Justine’s hand. “We’re leaving. You have a beautiful home. But you suck at the southern hospitality thing. Goodbye.”
Justine jerked her hand free to snatch her purse from the table. “I wasn’t calling you a drunk. I know you’ve had some tough breaks, some of it your own fault, just like me. But I’m not hiding. Because that’s being broken.”
Liann shook her head vehemently. “I’m not hiding. I’m protecting myself. You don’t know what I did to myself to live with who I was. I’m an alcoholic. Do you know what that means? If I go back out there, it will be like buying a bottle of vodka and pouring it down my throat.”
“Not if you go back on your terms.” Justine shrugged. “Maybe you need to go back out there, to prove to yourself that you’re not sober because you’re in here, and it’s out there. Maybe you need to prove to yourself that you’re better than that now.”
She took a notebook out of her purse and wrote down her cell number. “Call me when you’re ready to take a chance.” She laid the slip of paper on the table.
Sawyer followed Justine out of the house. He wasn’t sure what would happen between those two if they didn’t get out now. When he unlocked the car and opened her door, she threw her purse into the back. “Damn it!”
“You’re not going back in there.”
“No, I’m not going back.” She flopped down into the seat, and he shut the door. By the time he joined her, she had a fist pressed against her forehead. “I blew it. We did all of this, and I blew it.”
He laid his arm across the back of the seat and waited until she raised her eyebrows in annoyance. “What?”
“I’ve never met anyone like you.”
She waved a hand at him, as if he were having a duh moment.
He shook his head. “No, I…” How was he supposed to tell her she was the most incredible person he’d ever met? Not many people could’ve so thoroughly told off a woman they’d idolized since childhood. How could he say that he couldn’t see why she or anyone else doubted her ability to do damn near anything?
She frowned at him and turned to the road. “Drive.”
****
Low, steely gray clouds raced across the sky. He started the ignition and drove them away from Liann’s hideout, back to town. Back to civilization. Back to reality. He took his time over the bumpy road, putting off their return as long as he could.
They plodded up the stairs to their rooms, opened their doors, and parted without a word. Sawyer jammed his hands in his pockets and looked around the room. He had this nagging feeling he’d lost something, something he needed, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Everything was still here. Suitcase, keys, phone. He couldn’t figure it out.
When the ancient handset telephone rang, he picked it up and sat down on the sagging mattress. “Yeah?”
Justine replied, “Planes are grounded. There’s a storm coming. The snow’s already pouring down at the airport.”
That should’ve bothered him. Hell, who’d want to stay in Greasy Ridge any longer than they had to? But instead, the gray clouds following him around parted a little.
He rubbed a worn spot on the table beside the bed. “So what do we do now?”
They agreed Justine going to the diner would be a bad idea, so Sawyer offered to bring her dinner. By the time he’d picked up the food and began the trek across the parking lot, fat clumps of snow plopped from the sky to cover the ground.
In her room, they ate in silence. She’d switched on the TV but turned down the sound. A weatherman made sweeping gestures across the Eastern seaboard, and it didn’t take a leap of faith to know the too-cute snowflakes on the screen meant they were in for one hell of a snowstorm.
Her face was grim, her thoughts someplace else. “It was the flowers. My clothes were too whimsical.”
He tossed a wrapper in the garbage. “It wasn’t the clothes, princess.”
“Ugh, I know. It was my big mouth. She made me so angry. I hate when people judge me and start telling me about my life, like they know me. Really, it wasn’t even that. Did you hear the way she talked about my mom? What could she have against my mom?” She pushed the food away and started picking at the lemon meringue pie he’d bought for himself. “Other than my dad, everyone I know thinks my mom is adorable. Even I think she’s adorable.”
Frowning at the disappearing pie, Sawyer shook his head. “It wasn’t you. I think she expected something, and it wasn’t a job.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. Her eyes met his and their intensity surprised him.
“Quitting isn’t an option, for me. I’m finishing what I started.”
The tug in his gut when he met her eyes meant they were getting closer to what kept getting him into trouble. So he stood up to leave. He recognized that look. She’d be talking about her emotions any minute.
“I feel like…” She let her gaze slip from his and snagged her bottom lip between her teeth.
He groaned. So close. “What?”
“Have you ever had therapy?”
Unsure of where she was heading, he sat back down. “When you’re a kid, in the system, and you get in trouble, they always send you to therapy. But I never paid that much attention. Why?”
“I didn’t know you grew up in ‘the system.’ Like, what system? Foster care?”
He shrugged a shoulder and avoided her gaze. “Yeah, foster care. Family court. Juvenile court once or twice. Get to the point.”
“There’s a story, a metaphor really. The elephant in the room.”
“I’ve heard of it. It’s what people pretend isn’t happening.”
She kicked off her shoes and stretched out on the bed, resting her cheek on a hand. “Like in our case, we’ve decided to pretend you weren’t reporting my activities to my father for the last two weeks and, more importantly, to discuss if you’ll continue.”
“Okay.”
“And, for instance, I was kind of an ass last night. I’d like to apologize, but things seem okay now. And you were defending me earlier, so I’m pretty sure you forgive me. But I should still say it.”
“Nah, we’re good. So, if that’s not our elephant, then what is?”
“I have to be the one to name it?”
“You’re the one with therapy,” he said.
“That’s such a cop out. All right, it’s this…thing. This…us.”
He stalked across the room to look out the window. The parking lot looked like one big white, fuzzy blanket now. “This isn’t something we have to talk about.”
“But I can’t do that, Sawyer. I have to talk about the elephant in the room.” The springs of the aged mattress creaked as she moved. “I know you’ve told me you don’t care about me.”
“I never said that.”
“Okay, that you don’t have romantic feelings for me. But you’re a little confusing. I take full responsibility for last night. I can’t keep trying to push feelings on you that you don’t have or to convince you that I’m not like any other girl you’d like to sleep with and get out of your system. Even with that, you send mixed messages. You treat me like I’m important. Maybe I’m so screwed up that I’m misinterpreting that. I…I don’t know. But I need you to talk to me about it.”
He turned from the window and faced her. She’d sat up on the bed. Her head high, shoulders back, ready to face anything, she looked like a queen. If he’d ever doubted it, for even a minute, he knew for sure right then she deserved a hell of a lot better than him.
“Last night, was nice. I’ve never slept with anyone, and it was…nice. Right up to the part where you threw me out. Nice.” He took a deep breath. If he said last night was like any other night he’d spent with a woman, he’d be lying. They’d already crossed some line they had no business crossing. Why make it worse by examining it?
Her head fell back. “There’s no elephant, is there? I just made a complete fool of myself.”
“No, that’s not what I’m trying to say.” He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“It’s not that I don’t have feelings for you, Justine. But I’m not the kind of person who can do any more than the random hook-up. I keep trying to squeeze you into that category, but you don’t fit. It kind of proves what a terrible person I am that I wouldn’t admit it, even after I saw how much it mattered to you. I guess I’d rather make you angry and frustrated than end up being another person who lets you down.”
She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap, and nodded. “And yet here you are, a terrible person in the middle of nowhere, making sure I can sleep at night.”
He didn’t have a reply. Half of what he did, when it came to her, didn’t make any sense to him. Letting his gaze drop, he stroked his hand over her hair. The strangest feeling overwhelmed him now, that if he looked into those eyes, dark as espresso, he’d forget everything he’d said. Forget everything in his past, all the reasons he was mostly dead inside. Sure, she’d stirred something. But there wasn’t enough there to stir. Not enough to be who she deserved. He lifted himself off the old bed and brushed a kiss across her forehead.
Hours after he left her, Sawyer stared at the ceiling before sleep came for him. He dreamed of himself, a little boy rolling a cheap toy car across the rug, trying to be quiet. He’d made his baby sister a bottle, and she slept now in a laundry basket beside him. If she woke up and cried, he’d take her out in the hall to walk her around. She liked when he did that. A smile flitted across her face, dreams he guessed, while he watched over her.
His chest seemed like it would burst when he looked at her. Like when she’d giggle at his funny faces. It was a light feeling though, not like the dark tug he felt toward his mom.
He looked over at her, a line slashing his younger self’s forehead. Getting food was harder since the baby came. Before, he’d sneak out and grab a can from the shelf of the store down the street or, if the dark-haired man worked the counter, raid the garbage. But now, he was afraid to leave his sister long enough to get food.
He’d done it once, when she’d been home a couple of days, and heard her shrieking all the way downstairs. He rushed up the stairs and burst into the one-room apartment to find his mother clutching the baby’s shoulders, yelling at her to shut up. Each time she yelled, his sister’s head wobbled from her chest and fell all the way back.
He’d hit his mother then, for the first time ever, he’d hit her. She dropped his sister on the couch and turned on him. But that was okay, because she only hit him twice, and then he picked his sister up and took her outside to walk her.
He looked down, he was now grown Sawyer, standing beside the rusty sink, watching his younger self play. And then he looked around, Justine stood beside him. She whispered, “You loved your sister.”
He stole a glance at his mother, still sleeping, and pulled her by the elbow out into the hallway. “You have to be quiet, or she’ll be mad.”
She nodded, eyes wide, as though she understood the danger. Of course, she couldn’t. No one had beaten her for waking them from a drunken sleep.
She repeated herself, voice low. “You loved your sister.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You told me you couldn’t. But you took care of her. Like the way you held me so I could sleep. And you stood up to Travis and—”
“It’s not the same thing.” He stole a glance at the door. “I have to get back inside.”
She leaned to the side, to peer in the door past him, like a child considering some kind of mischief. “Someone should stop your mom. I’m going to do it.”
He grabbed her by the arm when she took a step toward the door. “You can’t. You don’t know, you don’t belong here. Go away, before you make things worse.”
Her face shifted, slid away, and his mother stood before him. He jumped back, hitting the wall behind him. Her nostrils flared and the crease between her eyebrows deepened. “What the fuck’s wrong with you? You selfish little bastard.”
She raised her arm, and somehow she’d gotten the wooden spoon from the window sill where he’d seen it earlier.
He woke himself tumbling from the bed, hands clenched in fists, adrenaline surging through him. He struggled out of the damp sheet twisted round him. Claustrophobia licked at his insides, so he opened the door and stormed out into the snow-covered walkway in front of the rooms.
The air tasted clean and he started to feel better after taking some deep breaths. With a soft chuckle, he realized he’d walked outside in his boxers.
Justine’s door opened a crack, she peered out, then stepped outside with him. She’d pulled sweatpants on under a silky gown, black as her hair. “Did something happen?”
He shook his head, taking another lungful of the crisp air. “I woke you up.”
“No, I was reading. Are you okay?” She took his hand and tugged. “Come inside.”
He stopped in the open doorway. “I should go back to bed. I turned the heat up too high and fell asleep. Got too hot.”
She crossed her arms, hugging herself for warmth. “The sky wouldn’t fall if you opened up to me.”
“Can’t you ever just let something go? You’ve turned what was supposed to be my big opportunity upside-down, you’ve stuck me in the middle of this feud with your father, and now I can’t even have a nightmare without you worming your way in.”
Her expression unreadable, she listened to his outburst. After about a minute, she said, “I didn’t put you in the middle of this. My father did.”
The sweat that had bathed him began to chill. He scrubbed his hands across his face. “I know that.” He turned on his heel and walked into his room. “I’m going back to bed.”