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“Are you going to do that every time? Because this will probably happen again. Even before I called you…” The title sticks in my throat and that alone makes me sad. “They were already staring. From the second we walked inside. Are you planning to keep me locked insideforever?”
It’s obvious he considers it for a few beats—until I screech in my throat. “Not going to keep you locked inside,” he says, finally. “We just need a few groundrules.”
“Likewhat?”
“Like when we’re in public, we don’t touch. Don’t kiss or hold hands. We’re uncle and niece. And that’sit.”
Another section of my heart loosens and drops. “But it’s alie.”
“No, it ain’t, Clara.” He bashes his fist on the dashboard. “You and me arewrong.That shit back there? It was your proof. First damn time we go out in public and we might as well be wearing a sign. I’m putting my cock somewhere it don’t belong and they could smell it onus.”
“Wrong?” I whisper, dazed. “But holding hands was one of my favoriteparts.”
He slides me a troubled look. “That’s…too bad.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “Can’t do it nomore.”
We’re silent for the rest of the ride back to the rental cabin. Every half mile, I sense Rex watching me and can tell he wants to say more. There’s nothingleftto say, though. I don’t feel safe with him now. Oh, I know he would never let anyone hurt me. But my mental safety…the safety of my heart…I put those things in his keeping and he let me down. It’s as if I parachuted out of a plane this morning and soared, soared so high, only to have my harness cut. The parachute is floating above me out of reach now while I plummet toearth.
Finally, we reach the cabin and he parks alongside the trucks belonging to Rudy and Hank. We sit in silence for a moment after he puts the vehicle in park. “Clara…”
Hope wells in my chest. “Yes?”
Seconds tick by. “Nothing.” He takes a cigar from the sun visor, shoving open the driver’s side and getting out. “See you inside,” he mutters, walking away in a cloud ofsmoke.
I wait until he’s been inside a full minute before grabbing my messenger bag purse, throwing it over my shoulder and climbing out. But I don’t follow Rex into the cabin. I take the broken pieces of my heart and jog toward my rentalbike.
Chapter Twelve
Rex
Ican’t believeI hurt her. Who could hurt such a sweetgirl?
Holding hands was one of my favoriteparts.
A roar leaves my throat and I stub out the cigar, resuming my pacing on the back porch of the cabin. Holding her hand and leading her into that stupid eye doctor was one of my favorite parts, too. Standing guard while she was examined, handing over my credit card afterward. All of it. Every second. I’m her Daddy and I make everything better for her. It’s aprivilege.
You blackeneverything.
Maybe it’s true. Even though she makes me feel the opposite. No matter how I dice it, though, the way those motherfuckers were looking at my girl sideways was all because she was withme.
I rear back and throw a punch at the rail, disconnecting it from the deck floor, leaving it teetering on the edge. Growing up, when my parents took me out in public, everyone looked at me the same way they were looking at Clara today. Like a single decision made before I was born was somehowmyfault. Men and women alike in that eye doctor gave Clara the same treatment. I didn’t bother to notice how they regarded me. Only her. She’s all I care about. And I can’t be responsible for people treating her bad. She deserves the fucking best ofeverything.
So I asked her to pretend. To keep our real relationship a secret in public. At the time, it seemed as though the only possibility, if we’re going to stay together. And wearestaying together, because I can’t breathe without her. Even now, she’s on the other side of the cabin and I’m not happy. I want her looking up at me with trust in her eyes, every minute of the day. Need Clara.Need.
My boots scuff to a stop on the wooden, leaf-covered planks. There was no trust in how she looked at me when I left the truck, was there? No. No, because she handed me these desires and I embraced them with her. Then I made her feel…wrong. Jesus, did I actuallyusethatword?
This relationship we started in the living room last night, then made solid on the lake’s shore this morning, is something Clara needs twenty-four seven. Knew it when she was practically skipping alongside me in the parking lot, looking up at me with hearts in her eyes. I’ve already limited her, though.Us.I’m not giving her what she needs. What webothneed.
I hurt her, instead. I hurt her realbad.
“Clara!” I bellow, walking into the cabin. “Where you at,girl?”
Silence.
Wait. Not total silence. I hear some shuffling near the front entrance and I head in that direction. But when I open the door and expect to find Clara pouting, Hank and Rudy are there, returned from a trek in thewoods.
“You seenClara?”
“No,sir.”
