Norton. The man who’d tried to rape Krista. Blake let out a low, rumbling growl that vibrated up from his chest, and Maybelline shrank away from him fearfully. She looked at Krista as if hoping Krista would defend her.
Not today. Not ever.
Krista swallowed her rage. “And, we’re out.” She deliberately turned her back on the woman who’d never been a mother to her, looking up at Blake. “I’m ready to make the rounds again, are you?”
Maybelline hurried around til she was facing them, eyes snapping with hurt and anger. “I guess you don’t care that much about that boy after all. Poor little cub.”
Krista actually laughed at that. There was the old Maybelline—she couldn’t even call her “Mama” in her head anymore. Maybelline turned into a mean bitch when her audience didn’t buy into her act.
Krista gave her a look of bored disinterest. “I guess I don’t believe you know a damn thing that’s useful, and if you did, you wouldn’t risk Dawnie Reed’s wrath to tell me. And your head’s half-pickled with alcohol anyway.”
“I’m not even drinking. Here, smell me.” Maybelline leaned forward, and Krista winced as a cloud of perfume stung her eyes and burned her nostrils.
“Jeez! Yes, you haven’t been drinking.” She blinked hard. “Doesn’t change the facts. The only person you ever help is yourself.”
Maybelline hissed out a long, angry breath. “Fine. He’s up at their winter cabin, way out of town. Percy’s guarding him. He’s alone, he won’t be hard to take on. I want you and your friend to take that cub and get him out of here before the lions come swarming through here and kill us all.”
Pure cowardly self-interest? NowthatKrista could believe. She felt a surge of hope. And this was also the first time that anyone had directly admitted that the Reeds were the ones who had Ethan. “All right then,” she said and turned and stalked off.
Blake shot her a look, turned, and hurried away to make a call on his satellite phone.
Suddenly, Maybelline hurried back to Krista and threw her arms around her, crushing her in a surprisingly strong hug.
“You may not forgive me, but I forgive you!” she yelled out, loud enough for everyone to hear. “My door is always open to you, Krissie-Kit!”
Something cracked in her purse, and Krista elbowed her mother off and stomped away, to murmurs of disapproval from the gathered crowd. In this little drama, they’d judged and found Krista wanting. Cruel Krista, breaking her mother’s heart.
Krista rolled her eyes. She didn’t have time for this. She scanned the crowd for Blake while she felt around in her purse, feeling the pieces of a broken comb. And something else. She opened her purse and peered inside, tore at the fabric lining of her purse, and what she saw sent a blast of cold from her head to her toes.
She looked up at Blake, who was holding his phone and walking towards her. And she saw him in an entirely new light.
