I snatch my keys off the dresser and try to take the stairs lightly.
“It’s a bachelorette party.” I keep my voice low so I won’t wake Pop. “If this is the first time she gets drunk, it’s a pretty good reason, right?”
“I-I guess.” She still sounds worried. “But we can take her home. You shouldn’t have to come all the way out here in the middle of the night. Hattie says y?—”
“I’m coming because I want to.” Another understatement. Getting really good at those.
I want to be the one Hattie calls when she needs a ride home. I want to be the one to make sure she’s safe.
No way in hell I’d rather someone else do it.
“You just hold her hair back until I show, and I’ll take it from there.” I shut the front door behind me as quietly as possible.
Margaret snorts. “The last thing she wants is me touching her right now.”
That tracks.
“Fair. Then just make sure she’s safe until I get there.”
Margaret doesn’t say anything at first.
“And… how do I know she’ll be safe after you get her?”
I stop dead two strides from my truck.
The moon is full and high, spotlighting me in the night. The crisp air brushes my hands, my neck, my ears. A breeze scrapes through dry leaves in the pecan trees.
And as certain as I am that I stand under the moon on a cool, fall night, I know down to my core that I would never harm Hattie Mercier.
“I’d step in front of a bus before I’d hurt her,” I say, and damn. Saying it? Meaning it? Easiest thing in the world. “And, honestly Margaret, if you hadn’t asked, I’d be concerned.”
Even over the noise in the club, I think I hear Margaret suck in her breath.
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“W-we’ll be outside.”
And when I pull up twelve minutes later, they are. Hattie, with her forehead pressed to the green cast iron streetlamp out front, is flanked by two women. And Margaret—the one with the costume shop bridal veil—hovers close but doesn’t touch Hattie.
I double park and swing out of my truck, eyes on my girl.
“Hey, party animal,” I tease gently, stepping close. I want to pull her into my arms, but I wait for her signal.
She lifts her head from the streetlamp, tilts back a little too far, over-corrects, and then crashes into my chest.
I wrap her up tight. “Gotcha.”
“Good… catch,” she mutters into my collar, swaying slightly. But I’m not letting her go anywhere.
I make eye contact with Margaret over Hattie’s head. I see the family resemblance. Don’t get me wrong, Margaret is pretty. She’s beautiful. But if she’s a work of art painted in watercolors, Hattie is the masterpiece in oils. Her beauty deeper, richer. More substantial.
Clutching my girl to me in one arm, I offer my free hand to her sister.
“Beck Olivier.”
Margaret gives me her hand and we shake. “Margaret Mercier,” she says and then smiles. “Soon to be Milton.”
“So I’ve heard,” I say, grinning. “Looking forward to it.”
