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Viv set her glass of water down slowly and slipped her arms around Royal’s back, giving him a hug.
“You’re safe here now,” Royal said quietly, tightening his arms around her. “Like you always should’ve been. I promise.”
Though Viv remained stiff in Royal’s arms, she pressed her cheek against his shoulder, closed her eyes, and bit her lip. Her arms were slow to leave him as he pulled away.
“You try to get some sleep tonight, too, okay?” Royal motioned toward Kit. “Your sister’s been cleaning up the house over the past couple weeks. Y’all’s old room was one of the first ones she overhauled, so the two of you can be roommates again for the night.”
Viv opened her eyes and met Kit’s, the soft, vulnerable expression on her face clearing and a stoic one taking its place. “Kit and I are past the age for sharing a room, Dad.” She tried—and failed—at a smile. “Besides, this whole thing should blow over by morning, and I need to be on my way as soon as the storm lets up enough for me to walk safely back to the Suttons’. There’s no telling how much cleanup will be waiting for us at the farm tomorrow morning.”
Royal’s smile dimmed as he stepped back from her. “I hate for you to run off again so soon, but—” His head drew back, and color flushed his cheeks. “I didn’t mean it like that, Viv. I really didn’t. I just meant—”
“I know what you meant.” Viv waved a hand in the air, grabbed her glass of water, and took a slow sip, as though Royal’s mention of her running off didn’t sting. But her hand, clenched tightly around the glass, shook, and her knuckles turned white.
Royal hesitated, lingering by Viv’s side, then nodded briskly and gestured for Mackey to join him. “Come on, Mackey. Let’s get started on your room. By the time we finish and you take a shower, I guarantee you’ll be ready to get some sleep, and this storm’ll just be a bad dream.”
“I want to put the blue sheets on my bed this time,” Mackey said as they left the kitchen and walked down the hall. “I don’t want the white ones, cuz I used them two weeks in a r—”
A door clicked shut, and their voices faded. Outside, the wind whistled along the rafters, and a distinctive flap of mesh wire beyond the closed front door started up again.
Kit winced. “I wonder if we’ll still have a screen on the front porch by the end of this.”
Viv drained her glass, then dumped the ice out, the frozen cubes clanking against the sink. “I wonder if Pearl Tide will have any viable crop left by the end of this.”
Her voice was tight and held an undercurrent of accusation.
Kit dragged her hands over her face, the cold condensation from her own glass of ice water clinging to her palms and chilling her overheated cheeks. “I’ve thought about that. More often than not all day.”
“He wouldn’t have been here if it hadn’t been for you.” Viv stood with her back to Kit now, staring at the closed blinds covering the small window above the sink and curling her fingers around the edge of the counter. “He wouldn’t have wasted hours boarding up this house when he should’ve been sinking cages and securing equipment back at the farm.”
“I know,” Kit said. The guilt she’d felt when Beau first arrived earlier that afternoon had only intensified throughout the day.
He should—as Viv had pointed out—have been at the Sutton house, helping Nate, Cal, and Viv secure their crop and protect the future of their business. But even though she’d encouraged Beau to do so multiple times as they’d worked outside Teague Cottage, he’d refused to leave until Viv had arrived.
“He chose to be here,” Kit added quietly. “I asked him to go back several times, but he’d made his decision. I could tell it had been difficult for him to leave the farm and come here instead. But he’d made up his mind. He wanted to be here, to help protect the house—and us—and there was no talking him out of it.”
“You should’ve tried harder.”
Kit eased back in her chair and slung an arm around the backrest. “What would you have had me do, Viv? Try to force him to leave? Shove him down that dirt road and push him inside the gate? I seriously doubt Beau would allow anyone to force him to do something he didn’t want to do. You, of all people, should know that by now.”
Viv spun around, her mouth set in a tight line. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
That Beau wouldn’t allow anyone—including Kit—to talk him into something he didn’t want to do, or reveal anything he believed had been told to him in confidence. That’s what she’d meant. Kit’s mouth twisted. She’d learned that truth firsthand in the parking lot of Vernon’s Raw Oyster Bar a couple of days ago, when she’d asked if Viv had told him she was in love with him. He’d protected his friendship with Viv, along with Viv’s private emotions, just as he’d promised he would protect Kit’s confidences.
It was commendable, really. Virtuous and honorable. All things she’d imagined Beau to be years ago. But revealing that conversation to Viv now would do nothing to ease her anger. If anything, it would inflame it.
“Nothing,” Kit said. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Yes, you did. You know exactly what you meant.”
Kit gestured tiredly with her hand. “Well, why don’t you tell me? Because I—”
“You meant that I couldn’t force him to care about me the way he cares about you.” Her mouth trembled. She pressed her lips together, then, voice tight, asked, “Isn’t that what you meant? That Beau will never look at me the way he looks at you? That no matter how loyal or dependable or supportive I’ve been, I still couldn’t turn his head, but you”—she flicked a hand in Kit’s direction—“you swam right back in and grab his attention.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. Like you never left.” A sound of frustration escaped her lips. “You trying to tell me that you didn’t know?”
No. That wasn’t at all what she was trying to say.
Kit leaned one elbow on the table and rubbed her temple. This was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid. “I know,” she whispered. “I know he’s noticed me, and . . .” She raised her head and met Viv’s eyes. “I also know how much he values his friendship with you, and how strong it is.”
“And you’d take that away from me?” Viv’s eyes welled, and tears seeped out of the corners. “The one person I have who truly cares about me? Who thinks highly of me and doesn’t blame me?”
