Page 58 of The Pretender

“And since I’ve read the accounts in the news, I know none of them are in jail, which pisses me off.” The simmering fury was right there in Harris’s voice.

“Getting the police to believe friends of friends kidnapped me and messed it up, but I was innocent, was not an easy sell. Almost immediately, Uncle Stephen confessed to having doubts.” She wrapped both hands around Harris’s and held on. “My parents tried to support me, but then they lost faith, too. I can’t blame them since my story did bounce around. It was hard to be convincing once I admitted to joking about a kidnapping.”

“Tabitha never told them the truth.”

“When she was sixteen she finally confessed to me. She was so different by then. Her carefree childhood gone. I couldn’t imagine how she’d survive that level of scrutiny and the massive disappointment they would all level at her. It was one thing for the family to turn on me. I could take it. In her state, I didn’t think she could.” She closed her eyes, hearing her sister’s pleading. “So I convinced her not to speak out.”

“You played the role of bad guy. Permanently.” He shook his head as a note of disgust moved into his voice. “And your parents never questioned. Never realized.”

She had been so angry for so many years about that. It was one thing for her to protect Tabitha. Gabby viewed that as her job... But no one stepped up to protect her. “It was easier.”

“Not for you.”

God, yes. That was it. No one made it better for her. Saying it, even thinking it, made her selfish so she stuffed it down deep inside for so long. But that was the point. She still harbored all this frustration and anger, ran from the money and the Wright name, because no one bothered to believe in her.

“What did she bury in the wall that you were so desperate to retrieve?” Harris asked in his calm, compelling way.

There was no need to hide this part. She’d unraveled the lie. Whatever vow she’d made to her sister now lay in tatters. She knew that should eat at her, possibly destroy her, but all she felt was this crashing wave of relief. A sense of having the pounding weight lifted, if only for a short time.

“We both did it. She showed me the map she drew and copies of notes she had with the guy who was in on it and duped her.” He’d been dumb enough to write it down. The papers had other handwriting on them. She assumed someone might be able to use it to connect the map to all the perpetrators, but that could also trickle back to Tabitha, so Gabby didn’t want to use the documents. “I wanted to burn it all. She insisted we bury it in case the police did come for me one day and I needed the proof of my innocence.”

Confusion moved into his eyes. “You were digging it up to take to the police or to clear your name?”

“No, I wanted to destroy it all, once and for all. Make sure no one ever saw it.” Finally bury the past so that she could try to move on.

“And whatever happened to this ringleader?”

“Long gone. It’s not him doing this. There’s no reason for him to do it.” Gordon was smart enough to stay out west. She would know if he ever lost that sense of self-preservation. So long as he stayed on his turf, she wouldn’t shake up his world. “Saving Tabitha meant saving the rest of them, some of whom I didn’t even know because I never saw their faces or heard them talk. To this day I know two guys who were in on it but not the rest. There really is no reason for any of them to be worried. I’ve proved with a decade of silence that I have no interest in pursuing this.”

“The next time you try to tell me that you don’t feel anything, I’m going to remind you of this moment.”

She felt shattered, literally blown into pieces. She didn’t want to remember anything about this talk. “I don’t understand.”

He lifted their joined hands and kissed the back of hers. “A woman who goes to those lengths to save her baby sister isn’t numb. If anything, you might feel too much.”

“Don’t make me into a martyr, Harris. I set the entire kidnapping in motion by being a spoiled brat.” That was the piece she had to live with. Who she was back then.

“By being human.” He rested their joined hands on his thigh. “You’re willing to cut Tabitha a lot of slack. Maybe do that for yourself.”

“If I thought back then that throwing her butt in juvenile hall would have saved her today, I would have done it.” That truth hit her the day they buried Tabitha. All those attempts by her parents to keep Tabitha safe might have gotten her killed. She had skills, but not the ability to ward off an attacker with a knife.

“Of course. Because you’re decent and loving.”

“Harris, don’t.” All that emotion she claimed not to feel rushed to the surface. The tears she’d held back pooled in her eyes.

He brushed a hand over her hair. “You’re a survivor. It’s one of the sexiest things about you.”

“You still think I’m sexy after all that? I feel like a washed-out dishrag.” Probably looked like one, too. Her muscles ached as if she had the flu. From the dry mouth to the ache in her stomach, she’d been wiped out. Offering all of that information left her dizzy and ready for a three-year nap.

But she could see warmth and, yes, affection in his eyes. It thrummed off him. Not pity. No, this was something deeper, bigger. Something that didn’t make her shrivel up and feel pathetic. This came from strength and it empowered her in a moment when energy had abandoned her.

His hand slipped down and his fingers wrapped around her neck, keeping her there with a gentle hold. “It’s taking all my restraint not to take you to bed right now.”

A very different sensation moved through her. “Don’t.”

Some of the tension pinging between them vanished and he started to pull away. “Okay.”

“I mean don’t restrain yourself.” She put a hand on his knee and let it travel higher. “Act on it.”

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