AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her face was tragic.
It was too much. It knocked the wind out of me.
I was undone with a glance. I couldn't even meet her eyes when she gazed at me like that. I looked down at my hands as an unmistakable wave of fear rocked through me.
Her expression told me everything and nothing, but one thing was for certain, she knew something she wasn't supposed to, and all of the rules had changed.
I felt unutterable guilt at the relief that washed over me. It was so powerful that for a moment it nearly drowned out the fear.
But only for a moment.
"Look at me," she coaxed softly. "Look at me and tell me what you've done."
I fled. Found my clothes, pulled them on with clumsy, jerking movements, and got the hell out of there.
She never stirred, didn't turn to watch me, didn't say another word, though it didn't escape my notice that she was shaking like a leaf.
Hugging herself and trembling like she could barely hold herself together.
It was pure hell to walk away.
And absolutely necessary.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"Beauty, more than bitterness, makes the heart break."
~Sara Teasdale
PAST
SCARLETT
I'd heard rumors, and over the years they'd grown more persistent. Whispers about Jethro Davis. It was commonly assumed that he was my father. Even my doubtful grandma had admitted a few years prior that he was the most likely candidate.
I'd never seen the man, but I hated the very idea that I could have a dad so close, in this very town, and he'd never even bothered to meet me.
Never once bothered to see what his daughter looked like. If she was all right.
Never bothered to make sure she didn't end up in a dumpster.
I preferred instead to fantasize that he was someone glamorous, someone rich, maybe even famous, some man who didn't even know I existed, because if he did, nothing could have kept him away.
But then, one day, I ran into Jethro Davis.
The rumors I'd heard about him weren't only about him being my father. A lot of them were about the man himself. The things he did. He was a criminal. A drug dealer and some said worse, that a few people who'd crossed him hadn't lived long to regret it.
He'd served some time in prison. For what exactly, I couldn't say. Assault and battery, some said. Armed robbery, I'd also heard.
I was familiar with the story of my supposed father long before I ever set eyes on him, but when I did see him, at the grocery store, randomly, I knew who he was right away.
I was in the peanut butter aisle, grabbing a few things off Gram's grocery list. Her housekeeper usually did all of the shopping, but she'd recently come down with a bad case of the flu, so I'd taken over the duty.
I'm not sure why I was so sure right off the bat. The way he was studying me maybe or that combined with the tilt of his eyes, the stubborn line of his jaw. It wasn't his features so much as the way he moved them. There was a strong resemblance, but there also wasn't.
He was a gorgeous man. Just stunning, his face perfectly symmetrical, and it wasn't vanity, but I couldn't help seeing some of myself in him.
And all of my fantasies about some heroic father who would have wanted me had he known . . . flew right out of my head for good.
