Page 27 of Secret Sins

"I don't know what I'm doing," I said quietly, half hoping she didn't hear me. Half anguished, half buoyant. She wanted to be my friend. She didn't think I was a horrible person.

"It's okay if you don't." Opening the freezer, Bailey pulled out a pint of ice cream. "We don't all have our shit together, Van."

Offering me a spoon she took from a drawer, she opened the container and set it on the table.

It felt as if there was no stopping her. This woman's force of nature was on par with a category five hurricane. Gentle determination and unconditional understanding stood on the other side of the apartment, slowly eroding my resistance. Self-loathing and destructive behavior embraced me, urging me not to give in to a pretty woman's persuasive charm.

Without thinking too hard, I stepped forward. Heidi stayed put, settling on the rug since the storm had passed.

"Tell me about your sister."

I watched Bailey dig her spoon into the ice cream, then scrape back one of two chairs.

Sitting opposite her, I said, "Beth is older than me by almost five years. She's smart as fuck; always hit the honor roll throughout her school years." The flavor surprised me when I finally got around to trying the ice cream. Cinnamon, but also something atypical.

"It's cinnamon basil gelato."

My furrowed brows must have given me away. "What in the world?"

"There's so much to this town you haven't discovered yet."

"Obviously." I dug back in, smiling as she batted my spoon aside to get more for herself.

"What else?"

"Mm." I swallowed. "She went off to college when I had just started high school. Everything seemed to go well for her. She had friends, a boyfriend; classes were easy for her."

For a minute, I couldn't speak. Memories weren't easily suppressed when they were so horrible, but I'd tried to forget them over the years. God knows Beth had begged me to let go and move on.

"Take your time. Or don't tell me the rest." Her hands rested on the table, one crossed over the other. The spoon sat forgotten in the tub of melting gelato.

"I came home from school to find my mother crying in the living room. Dad had come home early from work." Sucking in a breath and letting it out slowly, I continued. "They told me to go to my room. I thought someone had died, but I'd already lost my grandparents."

"How did it happen?"

Her words were soft, and I appreciated the reverence. "After a party. She wanted to walk home alone. It was only across campus."

"Dangerous."

"Way too dangerous. It wasn't a student. It took a long time to find him, but he was in full view of the campus cameras." My knuckles bitched when my fists tightened. "The whole thing was."

Her big brown eyes widened. "I hope no one made her watch it, in court or otherwise."

"No," I murmured. "But I watched it. It was years later by the time he was made to pay. Every day, I went to the courthouse to sit there and face that monster, staring him down with hatred in my heart."

"I can picture it. You would be silently raging, wishing for a few seconds alone with him. Dying to grant vengeance for your sister's sake."

She had me pegged there. "Beth is smart, but she's strong as fuck too. She grieved what she'd lost, she got counseling, and took some time off. But then she went back to that campus and busted her ass to get back on track."

"You admire her." Finally remembering the gelato, she tossed it back in the freezer and set the spoons in the sink. Returning to the table, she took my hand when she sat.

"Yeah. Yeah, I do." I studied the piles of hair Bailey had pinned to her head, and the open expression in her big brown eyes. "She'd love you."

Bailey grinned a bit shyly. "Really?"

"Someone ambitious, supportive of her friends, who won't let me wallow? Yeah." Staring at her until she ducked her head, I said, "Moxie, that's what she'd call it."

"She's a lawyer?" Bringing her chin back up to focus on me, Bailey seemed eager to keep me talking.