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“You really feeling okay?”
Gram looked fine. A little red and dry around the nose, but she didn’t sound clogged up or hoarse.
“I told you I was.” She had. Everleigh had worried anyway.
“So, what exactly did the judge say?” Everleigh asked as they stood there in a space all their own for a second while the guard talked to Clarke. “Other than that, you’re released to house arrest until sentencing?”
She still couldn’t believe the news they’d been greeted with at the door of the visitors’ entrance minutes before. Clarke had prepared her, but to have Gram standing there—a free woman other than the somewhat unattractive device on her ankle—was just so unbelievable. Almost too good to be true.
A part of her wanted to skip waiting for her parents to arrive, to just hurry out the door to Clarke’s car—anything to get Gram out of there before someone changed their mind. Panic set in. She had an irrational fear that she’d never felt before the night, two months before, when she’d been arrested for murder.
“I got the fine,” Gram was saying. “Only twenty grand, not fifty, and I will pay it myself, girlie, or rather, pay you back...”
She didn’t give a damn about the money. Not even if it meant giving up her dreams of a salon. But twenty thousand was pennies compared to what she was getting on Tuesday. And there was no way her grandmother was going to pay her back. She figured she’d save that conversation for a later date.
“And I agreed to three years’ house arrest...”
Everleigh hissed in a breath. “Three years!” She’d been hoping for one at the most. Still...Gram at home, rather than in a cell...
“I’m an introvert! I get to sit home and watch my shows. Not much hardship in that!” Gram grinned. Shrugged. Everleigh hugged her again. And then burst out the news that Fritz’s killer had been caught. That it was her friend Larissa.
Her grandmother, who’d been whooping at the news of the killer being caught, sobered. “That’s on Larissa and Fritz, girlie,” she said, leaning in to speak softly, but her tone was still fierce. “Don’t you dare find fault in you for their lack of character.”
Trust Gram to get right to the heart of the matter, pull it out into the open. “I chose them,” she said, equally softly.
“No, baby, they chose you,” Gram said, her gaze grave, wide, as she looked at Everleigh. “You loved them back, but they chose you.”
The look in Gram’s eye... There was a message there. One she was going to make Everleigh figure out for herself.
Thirty-eight years old and Gram was still treating her like she was ten.
“They recognized your innate value, your tender heart,” Gram continued, glancing over at the door a time or two. Looking for her son? Or watching Clarke and the guard, checking their continued occupation, giving the two women privacy to talk? “And your heart sees the good in everyone.”
So, what, did that make her a fool? An easy mark?
Was that what Gram was saying?
Something to think about...but not then. The door opened, and when her parents entered, the small hallway filled with a cacophony of celebratory voices and conversations. After a thankful and heartfelt group hug with both of her parents, one that healed without the words that would come when Everleigh was ready, she gravitated back toward Clarke, knowing he was there only because of her, and as they all left, she walked out beside him.
She’d expected a quick dash to the parked cars, but as they exited the building, they were greeted with a tunnel formed by long lines of people on each side. Some bore Free Granny signs. Others just stood in the cold with gloves and red noses and clapped. Everyone cheered as Everleigh, Clarke and her family walked by.
Emotion rose within her and she had to choke back happy tears.
She’d gone from town pariah
to celebrated citizen pretty much overnight, and she wasn’t any more comfortable with the latter than she’d been with the former. But Gram was grinning, and seeing that smile made the moment nearly perfect.
Clarke walking the walk with her did the rest.
They wouldn’t ever be a couple, but he’d become a part of them, a real friend, and she was glad.
* * *
Clarke knew he had to get out. Get away. Melissa had texted while they’d been in the prison hallway waiting for Amie and Andrew McPherson. Larissa had been arraigned and was being held without bail. While Clarke had planned to drive Everleigh back to his place to get her things, walking through that throng of people with her and her family changed things for him. Irrevocably. It was a family walk, like at a wedding, when two people who were joined in front of everyone who knew them...
He was in too deep. Hadn’t meant to be. But there he was.
Which meant he had to get out.
