“I made them into the bad guys,” she said after a moment. “They were the ones who didn’t want me then. They wouldn’t want me now.” She swiped at her cheek with the hand he wasn’t holding. “I never questioned why I couldn’t remember any details from the time before Mom and I left Crimson. She’d barely talk about it or her reasons for leaving, so I think I made up a story in my mind about how bad it was.”
“And maybe that wasn’t the whole story?”
She looked over at him. “It wasn’t great. My memories are hazy but coming back to me. You may not have been raised here, but you’ve heard plenty of Crenshaw stories, I’m sure.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “The family track record is spotty at best.”
“The Crenshaw track record is a mess of crater-size potholes and everyone knows it. I thought there was nothing more to my father. I wanted closure. I wanted him to admit that he didn’t care enough to make my mom stay. He didn’t fight or come after me.”
She shook her head, and a lock of blond hair fell forward against her cheek. “If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have told you there was nothing Declan Crenshaw or even Jase could say that would make me forgive them for letting her take me.”
“Even though your life might have been better away from here. The advantages and opportunities you had—”
“But it wasn’t my life.” She pulled her hand away from his, stood and paced to the edge of the river. He let her go, watched as she hugged her arms around herself. There were some things a person had to work out on their own, and Cole hoped the serenity of this space—the view of the mountains surrounding them and the sound of the river babbling over rocks—would help her calm the demons pulling at her.
He’d certainly come here often enough to soothe his own soul.
She turned back to him after a few minutes. “I know I sound like an ungrateful little princess,” she said, her gaze pained. “I did have opportunities. I had stability and security. They sent me to the right schools and ballet and debutante balls. I went to cotillion and birthday parties where parents rented ponies and magicians and we vacationed to beaches and mountains and...”
She threw up her hands. “None of it mattered because it wasn’t mine. My mom made the choice to reinvent herself, and she worked so hard to leave behind everything about her marriage and life before. But I was always there, a physical reminder of the mistakes she’d made.”
“She couldn’t have thought of you as a mistake,” Cole argued, hating that she believed that about herself. “She’s your mother.”
Sienna gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Not all moms are created equal, Sheriff. It wasn’t that I blamed her. I didn’t think she had a choice. She made me think that. Now I know...”
She sat down again beside him. “Somehow I blocked the details before we left. But I remember...not all of it but enough. She left Jase behind because Dad needed him. He was always the strong one—the caretaker of all of us. I wasn’t that important, so I got the ticket out of Crimson.”
She held up her wrist, pale and delicate in the soft evening light. “I dropped a sparkler on myself at one of the Crimson Fourth of July festivals. Maybe I was five at the time. My dad took care of me. Granted, he got ice from a beer keg plus a refill at the same time, but he tried to make it better.”
“Declan isn’t a bad man,” Cole told her. “He has issues, but he’s also got a big heart.”
“I wanted—needed—him to be the bad guy in this.” She leaned forward and placed her elbows on her knees. “My brother taught me how to ride a bike. He sat with me instead of his friends on the bus home from school when I started kindergarten so I wouldn’t get scared.”
“You didn’t remember any of this before tonight?”
“No. The only things Mom would ever discuss were the drinking and fighting between her and my dad. So those are the things I remember. Now I wonder which are mine and which are hers.”
“I’m sorry, Sienna.” He curled his fingers around her neck and massaged gently.
“But that doesn’t give me an answer to the million-dollar question. Why did my dad let me go so easily?” She swayed toward him, and Cole looped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. You’ll have to ask him.”
“I’m so afraid,” she whispered, “of hearing the answer.” She let out a choked sob that just about ripped open Cole’s chest. He pressed a long kiss to the top of her head and smoothed a hand over her hair.
After a few minutes, she straightened, dabbed her fingers to the corners of her eyes and shifted to face him. “How did you lose your parents?” she asked, and he felt his head snap back like she’d punched him.
“We were talking about your messed-up family,” he said, trying to keep his tone light. “Not mine.”
“Change of subject.”
He swallowed, ignoring the tightening in his gut. He hated revisiting his past. Most people were shocked enough when he shared that his family had died that he could sidestep giving any details. Leave it to Sienna to be different.
“My father killed himself,” he said bluntly. “Mom had a heart attack six months later.” He closed his eyes and added, “I’m pretty sure she actually died of a broken heart.”
“Oh, Cole. Was your father... Did he... Were there drugs or alcohol involved?”
“Not a bit.”
