Page 14 of Gunnar

“Yeah. I was.”

“Because you promised my dad you’d protect me.” Where before there might have been a budding desire in her eyes, now Pippa looked lost. Resigned even.

I shook my head slowly. “No. And no, I can’t talk about it right at the moment because I don’t know what to tell you. But it’s not because I’m obligated.” It was her turn to shiver. She sucked in a breath, and I knew she felt the pull between us too. She gave me a shy smile, lowering her gaze so her eyelashes lay like dark crescents under her eyes. “Do you think you can stand, honey?”

“Yeah.” Pippa nodded and slid off the vanity as I stepped back. I kept my hands on her hips to steady her. Good thing too, because she swayed slightly and I realized she was drooping with exhaustion.

“You gonna be able to eat? I think you’ll feel better with something in your stomach, even if it’s just a bite or two.”

“I’ll try. I’m hungry, but I’m dead on my feet.”

“Figured.”

“I’m going to have to cut my hair.” The sad look on her face told me her hair represented more than just hair to her.

“Maybe not. I bet we can save most of it.”

“Are you good with getting mats out of a woman’s hair?”

I shrugged, a smile tugging at my lips at a memory. “I used to be. When me and my sister were little, she had hair so long she had to be careful not to sit on it. She was all the time getting knots in it. No matter how hard she tried to keep it brushed, she would always end up crying and bringing me her brush to help her.”

“How old were you?”

I shrugged. “Maybe seven or eight. She said Mom was too rough. Just like Mom was always too rough cleaning our faces. Like every spot of spaghetti sauce was a personal affront to her.”

“I think that’s a mom thing. Mine was always too rough too.”

“Anyway, Hannah refused to cut her hair, and I hated listening to my sister struggle with taming the wild mass. So, I took care of her.”

“Just like when she defended herself and killed her attacker?”

I should have expected the question, but she slipped it in there as skillfully as any investigator. “Yeah, I guess so.” She didn’t flinch away from me at the reminder of my prison time. I thought I might see fear or something in her expression, but there was only a deep longing. “Did you ever have anyone help you with your hair?”

“No.” She looked away.

“No sisters? Surely your mom helped you.”

She shrugged. “My mom wasn’t what one would call overly demonstrative. If she ever helped me with anything, I don’t remember it.”

I reached for the clothes she’d set on a small make-up table so she didn’t have to walk on shaky legs. “That doesn’t sound very pleasant.”

“I guess it’s what happens when your mother gets pregnant by a prison inmate but has a husband on the outside.”

“Knuckles didn’t tell me that part.”

“That’s because I doubt Knuckles knows. If he does, he’s got Mom completely fooled. She seduced him, intentionally got pregnant by him, introduced us and suckered him into thinking of me as his daughter so he cares about me. At least, that’s what she believes she did.”

“You think your mother had anything to do with your kidnapping?”

“I can’t say for sure either way. And you have no idea how bad that hurts.”

I grunted. “To know the whole reason you were conceived was to hurt someone else.”

“Yeah. The only thing I know about my father is that Mom says he’s a killer and that if he suspects for a moment I’m playing him, he’ll kill me without hesitation.”

“Pippa, Knuckles would never hold you responsible for your mother’s actions. Even if you were guilty of tryin’ to take him out, he’d still give you every benefit of the doubt until he couldn’t.”

“But after that, he would kill me if he thought he had to.”

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