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“Please take me home,” she whispered.
She said almost nothing for the next two hours. She didn’t ask him to stop at the garden place for whimsical lawn art. She was lost in her head, unaware when he sent a couple key texts.
When they reached Fairhope, it was just after dark. Except for the local diner, which closed at eight, the town’s few shopkeepers rolled up the sidewalks by six. They passed through Main Street’s two stoplights, then they were back among farmland and rural landscapes, rolling shadows under a crescent moon.
She was only peripherally conscious of that until she felt Brick’s hand on hers. He stood by her open door, and they were parked in front of a white farmhouse with black shutters and a wraparound porch. The details of the outbuildings were outside the range of the porch lights, though she could see the gleam of the chicken coop wire. This time of night, the occupants would be peacefully roosting.
“You’re home, Les,” Brick said.
She’d assumed her mother would be inside waiting, the kitchen and living room lights like welcome beacons. She hadn’t expected her to be standing on the bottom porch step.
It was like a lightning strike to her numb state, her jumble of bottled emotions illuminated in one glaring flash. Brick helped her get her feet on the ground, but her legs were half asleep from two hours of stillness.
It didn’t matter. She stumbled across the driveway. All of her resolve to act like an adult left her. No judgment or vicious self-admonishment could keep her from breaking into that desperate run. Not with the knowledge she saw on her mother’s face.
Brick had told her. She could be mad about it later. Right now, she ran to her mother’s arms.
They closed around her like the promise of an afterlife, a place to get past every terrible mistake, every loss beyond bearing. They folded down onto the steps together, her mother continuing to hold her as Les was overwhelmed by the force of her tears.
It was like the night at Brick’s, but different. The absorbed grief of Raeni DaCosta poured out for Les’s own mother, who might have faced the same kind of loss twenty-four years ago. If her father hadn’t called on the heavens with the name of Celestial Joy. If the doctors hadn’t been as good as they’d been.
They’d succeeded where Les had failed.
Brick sat down behind her, his leg braced next to her hip. He had his hand on her back and also on her mother’s shoulder, offering them both his solid strength.
“It’s all right, dear girl,” her mother was whispering. “It’s all right.”
“No…no it’s not. No, Mom…”
“Yes, it is.” Elaine’s voice got fierce as she cupped Les’s head, held her closer. “Life is hard, dear baby. That’s all. Life is hard to live. It’s okay. You’re home.”
With Brick next to her, her mother’s arms around her, and sitting on her front porch, Les didn’t know if it was okay or not. But here, she had the best chance of figuring it out, picking herself up, and making it be okay.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When her crying finally subsided, her mother spoke quietly to Brick. “Did she eat?”
“She had some lunch, but her stomach’s been upset a lot. Maybe hold off until tomorrow.”
Elaine’s fingers tightened on her, but her voice stayed brisk. “Let’s get you ready for bed, then. We’ll feed you in the morning. You look like a good wind could blow you away.”
Les tried to stand up. Whether from lack of food, exhaustion, or the surfeit of emotion, she swayed. Her hand landed on Brick’s chest as her mother held her other arm. “I’ve got her,” Brick told Elaine. He picked her up in one matter-of-fact move. “Lead the way.”
“Her room’s upstairs.”
“I know. It’s not a problem.”
Les caught her mother’s surprised but thoughtful look, but she took Brick up the stairs. Les knew she should tell him she could walk, but he gave her that look. She bit her lip and put her head against his chest. That telegraphed command, a Dom taking charge, made her decide it was okay to let herself be cared for. At least right now.
When they reached her room, Brick set her down, but held onto her until he was sure she was steady.
“You can use Rory’s old room downstairs,” Elaine told him. “If you’d like to put your things in there, I’ll fix you a plate after I get her settled.”
Her mother’s way of saying she intended to grill him for more details. Coupled with a not oblique hint she’d be the one with Les while she changed into nightclothes. No matter the obvious physical intimacy between her and Brick, her mother was her mother.
“I’ll bring her suitcase up.” Brick turned to Les and touched her face. She answered the question in his eyes.
“You can tell her. Tell her everything.”
