Lia’s breath caught, clearly commiserating with Dani. So Gard kept going.
“They were so…cold in that moment. Here Dani was, crying and scared and just…a kid. And they were treating her like an employee who’d stolen from them.” Gard shook his head. “It was like watching their masks get stripped off in real time. All these things I’d never paid attention to, never poked at, just let slide… I couldn’t pretend anymore for the sake of peace or ease or whatever.”
He blew out a breath. He supposed it was heavy stuff for a first date, but these weren’t exactly normal first-date protocols when Lia had been wrapped up in his and Sammy’s life for the past two months now.
“After that, I told Dani I was going to take care of everything. Because shewasyoung and scared. She needed someone to be an adult. I didn’t decide not to go to law school in the fall justbecause I couldn’t really help Dani if I was in school. It was bigger than that. My parents’ behavior in that moment opened my eyes to who they really were and who I would be if I followed the plan they set out for me. It was like wearing blinders my whole life and having them ripped off. I wanted to be there for Dani, but more… I didn’t want to be the kind of man who let his sister suffer because he’d had it all right. Who fell in line with parents who could be so cruel to their own daughter.”
“So from there on out it was you and Dani against the world?”
“Pretty much. Even that… It was all easier on me. The police academy was a good fit. Challenging, but it felt…right. After Sammy was born, Dani suffered from postpartum depression, and we didn’t really have the resources to know what that was at the time. I was busy trying to get through the academy, so when she fell into harder drugs… Well, it was just a tough time. I got her into rehab about the time I got my job at county.”
“It seems to fit you. Police work, that is. Franny said Royal says you’re great. Do you—”
He could see she was letting him off the hook from having to get too deep into Dani’s drug addiction, but he wasn’t about to keep talking about himself. Not when he knew she had stories of her own.
“Before we get into my job, it’s your turn.”
“My turn for what?”
“To tell me your story. Why’d you run away and never go back?”
Lia blinked at him. She’d been so wrapped up in his story—hishonesty—she hadn’t prepared herself for the turnaround.
She should have. She should have been protecting herself, because she couldn’t be as honest as he was being. Of course,she’d given Sammy pieces of her childhood, hadn’t she? She could give himthosepieces at least.
The hard part was…actuallywantingto give him the whole. He’d been so open and honest—she knew, because he hadn’t painted himself as Dani’s savior. She could see the way he felt guilty, even if he shouldn’t, for being a bit of a self-absorbed brother before Dani had gotten pregnant.
But he’d stepped up when he’d realized. And for Sammy’s whole life, he’d been there. Being the hero, whether he saw it that way or not. Lia did, and she knew Sammy did too—even when she was mad at him and not wanting to be grateful for him.
So, even though it gave her pause, Lia told him what she’d told Sammy. About never really knowing her parents because of their drug problem. How she’d been raised mostly by her aunt and uncle. But since Gard knew she had run away, and he wasn’t a vulnerable teen she was afraid of influencing, she figured she could give him a few details into that too.
“My aunt and uncle didn’t like me. I think every year I didn’t turn into the perfect obedient robot, they hated me a little more. I don’t know that if I’d been their biological daughter they would have felt that way, but I was tainted. I was a burden, and they were the type of people who thought burdens should pay the person who shouldered them back. I did not subscribe to that belief. Defiantly.”
“Good,” he said emphatically, reaching across the table and putting his big hand over hers. He had a scar across two knuckles. There was something about that scar, his story, hers, this moment that seemed to work together to offer her a few realizations.
One, her first and immediate dislike of him had been born out of this feeling right here. A warm, excited unfurling. Like she’d seen him and recognized something in him would…be a threat to the very careful, distant life she’d built in Hope Town.
The second realization was that she’d been distant not because of her secrets so much as because… She really didn’t think anyone would ever be able to see beyond who she’d been or what she’d done. But if anything, Gard’s story about how he’d come to open his eyes to his family was such a clear indicator that he’d…give her a lot of grace.
Which of course, made her even guiltier that she couldn’t share it.
“You don’t have to finish the story, Lia.” He squeezed her hand. His smile was kind.
She hated it.
“No, it’s okay.” She would tell him what she could. She made a promise to herself to always tell him what she could.
The waitress came by with the dessert they’d ordered, and one more glass of wine, and Lia steeled herself to tell a portion of the story. A portion that hopefully was enough for Gard to feel like she wasn’t…holding back.
“I’m not sure I would have run away all on my own. I had this friend. I was a freshman. She was a senior. I look back and realize she…probably had worse problems at home than I did, but we commiserated about that. She was planning to run away after graduation. She’d met some guy who claimed he could give her a great job in California and I just…begged her to let me come with her. So I did. And I never looked back.”
And that was about all she could tell him. Even though she could read the questions in his blue eyes. Even though she thought maybe he’d…actually understand.
“So even now, you’ve never contacted your aunt and uncle? You just…stayed away forever?”
“For all they know, I’m dead,” Lia said, knowing she sounded flat and perhaps a little bitter. “I assume they hope I am. I hated them, so I didn’t care what they thought.”
“Past tense?”
