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“And?” she coaxed.
“And… she’s a lovely girl.” He blinked, torn between the need to lambast her for the years of keeping Mia from him and alleviating what seemed to be genuine concern. “I guess I’m still wrapping my head around it all.”
“You were nice to her,” she pried, with a critical eye, more a statement than a question.
“Of course I was nice to her. Believe it or not, you seem to be the only person on planet earth that I’m unable to treat with any level of civility.”
“True. When it came to me, you always assumed the worst.” She made that comment with her head down, almost to herself, visibly deflating.
She repeated her question from earlier, “Do you remember…thatnight?”
Shaking his head, he wondered at her fixation on whether he recalled the details of that sordid evening.
Considering his altered state at the time, he could only remember feeling deeply ravenous for her, agitated… and then… nothing. Later he learned the release of serotonin from the drug was the culprit for his feelings of pleasure and well-being. Even his chattiness.
That should have been his first sign someone had tampered with his beer. During high school, he was known for being introverted. The girls calling him the ‘strong and silent type.’ As long as he wasn’t required to join in on any conversations in the cafeteria or at school events, he was more than fine with that.
It wasn’t until college, he developed his speaking skills, learned how to communicate with people in a way that truly resonated.
That said, he was still a man of few words and the master of observation. At the moment, he observed Birdie as acting strange asking if he remembered the night he’d spent the last fifteen or so years trying, with every fiber of his being, to forget.
“No, I remember nothing about us that night,” he replied, flatly. Which was the truth. He remembered being atypically social and friendly and then hungry, but not for food.
So, so, hungry.
“I consider the memory loss a small reprieve from the other consequences.”
He watched her body concave ever so slightly at the cutting remark.
“Mia…” she said, as if to change the subject. “She’s wonderful.” Beseeching eyes reached his and he felt instantly off-kilter. “Please don’t reject her. You can hate me all you want. Malign me. Turn my carcass over to the angry villagers. But please don’t take what happened between us, so many years ago, out on Mia. She doesn’t deserve it and she’s lost so much. Her father, my husband, he died recently.”
Lucas sighed, rubbing his jawline and feeling a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“He was a good man,” she continued. “I think you would have even liked him. He and Mia were very close.”
Lucas kept nodding. Unsure how to navigate such emotional waters, swimming way outside his comfort zone and without a floating device. It didn’t help that the woman standing in front of him wore a dress that looked to be painted on her trim body with pert nipples standing at attention.
Fuck, she was still as beautiful as he remembered.
“So, where is Mia?” she asked, bringing him back to the more important matter at hand.
“Do you remember Hollis Walker?”
“The Chief?” she asked, her eyes suddenly bright.
He nodded. “He was at the house when Mia arrived last night. She’s spending the day with him and Lorraine.”
She nodded, as if pacified with Mia’s whereabouts.
Assuming a temporary truce, Lucas leaned against the sink next to her and crossed his arms over his chest. “I need to know why, Birdie. Why didn’t you tell me about our daughter?”
From his peripheral vision, he watched her hands cover her face, her slender fingers run through her scalp with a heavy sigh.
“Fear.” A single word that said nothing and… everything.
He huffed, “You—Birdie Wellborn—were afraid of me?”
“Of you, a father who failed to protect me, a mother who belonged in a mental institution, an entire town who hated me.”
