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His anxious concern turned hard in his chest. After what they’d shared, he couldn’t believe she was jerking him around like this. “What are you trying to pull?” he asked. “ I want to be with you, and up to thirty seconds ago I would have sworn you wanted to be with me, too. What are you doing?”
“Telling you the truth.” She met his stare, and tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. “Aaron controls my dating life because he’s dead. He uses tricks to make my dates go away. I don’t want him to hurt you. But if you stay, he will.”
The most shocking thing about her confession was that she obviously believed what she was saying. Yet…she couldn’t.
It was too absurd.
She was a completely functional, successful business owner…who lived in a decent apartment... she’d turned into a complete hovel.
His own words tiptoed back into his mind. How can I walk in here twice, a year apart, and find you without a boyfriend? Why isn’t there a line of guys trying to knock me on my ass for talking to you?
Maybe the answer was simple. Anyone who knew her for more than a day would discover that she thought the poor kid who was trying to hook her up with a decent guy was dead, and a physical threat to anyone who touched her.
Jesus. The idea that she might be mentally ill felt wrong, but when he considered the emotional trauma of the car wreck that had taken her parents’ lives and nearly hers as well, and the guilt associated with being the one who’d survived—maybe a break from reality wasn’t such a far stretch.
“Kayla, baby,” he said, in the most soothing, non-confrontational voice he could muster. “I think you need some help. Professional help.”
A flush of red crept into her cheeks, and a wounded look washed into her eyes. Had she really hoped he would believe her? How many times had she been through this before? How many guys had run like hell and left her to carry on with her broken fantasies and functional psychosis?
Kayla rubbed her eye with the back of her hand and sniffled. “I’m not crazy, Rafe. But I don’t blame you for thinking I am.”
Damn, he wished she didn’t sound so sure of herself. It probably meant she was worse off than he’d imagined. “You’ve dealt with a lot in your life, baby. Sometimes talking to a doctor can help you to—”
“Oh, this is bullshit.” Opal burst out of the bedroom holding something that looked like a game board. “Here, if you don’t believe us.”
She thrust the board into his hands and glared at him.
Us? Opal was facilitating this fantasy? How could she believe she was helping? Rafe stared at her, then glanced down at the board in his hand. It was a homemade Ouija board, customized with their names, regular phrases, and an impressive assortment of high frequency words. The problem was way worse than he’d thought.
Kayla shook her head and held out her hand to take the board from him. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take that, and you can just go.”
Holding firm on the board, he met her eye. “Kayla, I’m not leaving you.”
She might not be capable of having a relationship with him, but he wasn’t going to abandon her.
A breeze blew through the apartment, and the dry leaves piled at the end of the hall spun in a spiral across the floor.
Looking panicked, Kayla grabbed his arm. “You have to get out of here now.” She turned toward the leaves. “He’s leaving.”
Opal let out a hoot, and Rafe looked behind him. She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
He turned back toward the door and started at the sight of the kid from the bar.
“Aaron, man,” he said, running a hand across the back of his neck. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. Look, I need to talk to you about your sisters.”
The poor kid, how the hell was he dealing with this?
Kayla stared at him, eyes wide, haunted. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s going to be fine, honey.”
Looking back at Aaron, he asked, “You think we could go talk in the hall a sec.”
The kid didn’t move. At all.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
Something wasn’t right.
Aaron had seemed nice enough in the bar, but looks could be deceiving. How deep did the pathology in this family run?
