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That’s what it felt like. Like she’d sewn her name on my collar and no matter where I got lost, I’d always find my way back to her.
Hope was a very weak candle in my chest.
“I’d like to speak to her,” I said, stepping up on the cement step.
“She’s not here.”
“Where is she?” I asked, suddenly panicked.
“She said she was going to wait for you,” she said. “Where she knew you’d turn up eventually.”
If I felt rough at Zoe’s, after a five-hour drive in the middle of the night I felt like week-old roadkill. But that glimmer of hope that Penny had ignited in my chest had become a fire of purpose.
I arrived at Bonne Terre at dawn, ready to storm any gate that stood in my way. The red front door wasn’t locked, and I stepped into The Manor and felt as though I’d been sucked back in time. A kid again, walking through these doors for the first time. Alone. Scared. But determined to keep my family together.
What I wasn’t expecting was my grandmother.
“Well, well,” Margot said, sitting in a pool of new sunlight in the kitchen. She looked somehow both old and young at dawn, as if the years behind her were long but not nearly as interesting, in her estimation, as the years to come. Her sleek white hair was loose around her face, and her blue eyes were as sharp as hooks. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
“Is Zoe here?”
“She is. But she’s sleeping,” she said, her voice sharp when I started up the stairs to find her. “And that woman needs her sleep, Carter. She’s upset and pregnant.”
Guilt body slammed me, and I stepped back into the kitchen and collapsed into an empty seat at the table.
She stared at me over her teacup as if she was the queen and I was less than nothing. “You’ve been busy.”
I didn’t know what to say to that so I was silent, playing with the homemade jingle bell centerpiece in the middle of the table.
“Vanessa?”
“Gone,” I said. “For good. South America maybe. She’s got people after her for money. The gems…” I paused, tired of the words before they even came out of my mouth. Tired of my life.
“She thought the gems would get her out of a jam. Get her out of the life.”
“Those damn gems,” Margot said, her voice burning, and my gaze flickered to hers. “Caused us more trouble than they’re worth.”
“Uncle Carter?” I spun to see a sleepy, wild-haired Katie on the steps.
“Hiya, Katie,” I said, standing as she leaped off the steps into my arms.
“We’ve been so worried!” she cried. “Mom is totally freaking out and Uncle Tyler is pretending like nothing’s the matter but he and Aunt Juliette are thinking about hiring a private eye and Zoe is—”
There was a thump and a patter of feet on the floors above us and within moments Zoe was on the steps. My chest collapsed at the sight of her. She was so pale. Big black circles lined her eyes, and the swell of her belly against a long white nightgown seemed to dwarf her.
Margot pulled Katie out of my arms, and I stared, blind and dumb, at the woman I’d hurt.
“I’m so sorry,” I breathed.
She was dry-eyed, but her hand trembled against the banister as she stepped down into the kitchen. “For scaring us?” she said. “Or for being so cruel before you left?”
“For both,” I breathed. “For everything.”
I became dimly aware that my whole family was filtering into the kitchen. Savannah and her husband, Matt. Tyler and his wife, Juliette. My whole life, everything I’d denied and turned away, left behind in an effort to protect, was right here, right at the worst and best moment of my life.
But not for a moment did I take my eyes off Zoe.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her little chin lifted, and I wondered if she’d been taking royalty lessons from Margot. I nodded because my throat was so clogged with words. All the things I wanted to say to everyone in the room were suddenly desperate for freedom.
My family, I thought. This is my whole family.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
I wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter, wanted to spare her the seediness of my last five days, but I looked over at my brother. My sister. Their blond hair like halos in the morning light. I saw them as they were and as they had been as children, and I knew I wasn’t that different from Zoe’s mother. They watched me with knowing eyes—Tyler’s in particular seemed to be telling me not to be an idiot anymore.
And I knew for the rest of my life I wouldn’t spare anyone anything.
It hurt too much. Cost too much.
“I’ve spent the last week in Mom’s hotel room,” I said, and just about everyone’s mouth fell open. “Thinking she might show up and tell me it was all just a big mistake. But she’s gone. Without the money from the jewels she thought we had…I think she had to leave the country.”
