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“So what are you suggesting I do?” she asked. “Just...let it go?”
He stretched his neck again. “Let me talk to her, see if I can get her to tell me the truth. If she admits it, apologizes and pays you reparation, will that be enough? I hate to ask this of you, but if I can get her to that point, is there any chance we could handle it quietly—just the three of us? And your father, of course.”
Ellen knew she’d be justified in saying no. She didn’t owe him or the Fettermans any favors. Or...maybe she did. Hendrix had helped her drill the Haslem well. But he was the reason she’d had no other help. And it was his aunt—or her father—who’d tried to sabotage it, costing Ellen an entire day of work. If she hadn’t been able to save the well, it would’ve cost Jay thirty thousand to drill another one.
“Do you think she’ll tell you the truth?” she asked.
“I don’t know. She’ll probably get mad at me for even asking. She’s already mad at me.”
“Because of me?”
“She’s not happy we’re...friends.”
“Why?” Ellen demanded as more anger and frustration rushed through her. “How can that possibly hurther?”
“I don’t know. I don’t get it, either. My best guess is that it’s her way of continuing to believe she did the right thing back then. She can’t ever be wrong, can’t accept any blame. She wants to believe it was you.”
“I was ten!”
“I know,” he said with a wince. “Anyway, it’s possible she won’t even talk to me about what she did last night. But I’d like the opportunity to try. If it was her and not Stuart—”
“If it was Stuart, she probably still had a hand in it.”
“That’s true. And I want to understand what she was thinking and feeling, if she’s remorseful and all that. It would...it would make it easier to decide what should happen as a result.”
Ellen had Lynn athermercy, couldfinallyhurt her back just as she’d dreamed of doing since she was a child and so crushed by Lynn and her father’s rejection. Those fantasies were the only things that’d kept her going in high school when she was drowning in the responsibility of trying to help her mother keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Back then, it’d seemed like she was fighting on all fronts, battling the whole world just to eke by.
But did she really want to be the kind of person who delighted in revenge?
She stared at the carpet as she thought back over all the times she’d been snubbed by her father’s second wife. How Lynn had refused to let her come and stay. How Lynn had refused to let Stuart come over when she was staying with her grandparents. How Lynn hadn’t wanted Leo or Hendrix to play with her. How lonely and lean her Christmases and other holidays were by comparison to theirs. And how Lynn had tried to turn everyone in Coyote Canyon against her when she first arrived in town.
So much of the pain and anger she’d suffered had been caused by this one selfish, jealous woman. There was a part of Ellen that wanted to shout what Lynn had done to the Haslem well from the rooftops. Print it in the paper! Then everyone would knowshewasn’t the terrible person in this situation—Lynnwas.
But then shewouldbe the same kind of terrible person as her stepmother, wouldn’t she? If she abused power when she held it, too, how would she be any different?
“It’s so ironic...” she muttered.
Hendrix bent his head to try to catch her eye. “What’d you say?”
She looked up at him. “I’ll hold off to give you the chance to talk to her.” She couldn’t speak for Jay Haslem once he found out, though. Even if she didn’t tell him, Rocko could. But that didn’t matter. At leastshewouldn’t be out for vengeance. That was somehow a win despite how tempted she was to let the full consequences of Lynn’s actions hit her right in the face.
“Thank you.”
His expression made her glad she’d chosen mercy over justice, which only demonstrated how desperate for love and positive attention she really was, she thought.
She couldn’t speak because of the emotion that was welling up, so she nodded. It was getting late, and she didn’t know if he planned to talk to his aunt tonight or wait until tomorrow. If Rocko was spreading what he’d seen around town, Hendrix needed to act quickly...
But he didn’t turn toward the door. He pulled her into his arms and held her against him. Then he kissed the top of her head. “You do something to me I can’t explain,” he said and brushed his lips against hers before seeing himself out.
Twenty-Two
Ellen stood in the middle of her living room for the next fifteen minutes. She couldn’t bring herself to move. She was afraid it would break the spell of what’d just happened, and what she was feeling seemed even more magical than the time she’d spent with Hendrix last night. Sex she could attribute to hormones and the drive for pleasure. This was something different, something deeper. It terrified her at the same time it excited her. She’d never felt anything like it, wanted to take the time to imprint the last few seconds of Hendrix’s visit on her long-term memory.
She wished she could talk to someone, share her excitement but also her doubts and fears. But she couldn’t tell her mother. Jan would freak out when she heard that Lynn had tried to sabotage the well and would probably show up in town tomorrow and raise havoc, trying to get Lynn thrown in jail. Jan had reason to dislike Stuart’s second wife, too.
And Ellen couldn’t tell Talulah. The issue wasn’t a matter of trust; it was that she knew Talulah would only saw off the branch she was trying so hard to cling to so she wouldn’t get swept away and be hurt. Talulah thought Hendrix was “a good man.” She couldn’t see how fraught with danger this situation truly was—or she assumed the danger was being overstated or everything would turn out right in the end.
Ellen wasn’t so sure.
