Page 67 of Sweet Home

She was too stunned to speak. This wasn’t how West was supposed to react. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to go. But the man just sat silently in the driver’s seat, waiting for her to explain.

“The car is mine,” she managed at last, figuring shemight as well begin at the beginning. “My mom gave it to me before she passed. But I didn’t really know how to change the title, or have the money to do it anyway. So it’s still in her name.”

“I’m sorry you lost your mom,” West said. He sounded like he meant it, instead of just spouting empty words like people usually did. “Who would have said the car was stolen?”

“My father,” she sighed.

There were so many things in her past that made Dulcie feel ashamed. And she hated the idea of sullying the perfect world of Sugarville Grove by sharing them.

But West was still waiting, looking like he would sit patiently behind the wheel of the truck until grass grew over the hood.

“He was never really… hands-on with Delphine and me,” she said at last. “But when Mom died, he just lost his reason to care. He started drinking more, and he barely went to work.”

West nodded, his eyes on the snow falling on the windshield, as if he knew she needed space to go on.

“I don’t know what I would have done if not for Delphine,” she went on. “Things were really hard, but I always knew I had to keep going and do whatever it took to take care of my baby sister. She’s my whole world.”

West nodded.

“She was only ten when I turned eighteen,” Dulcie went on. “But I managed to find a job at a grocery store, and a room to rent. It wasn’t much, but it was ours.”

Tears threatened again and sheswallowed them down. She wanted to tell the story, needed West to know everything.

“But my dad wanted me to come back and live at home,” she said after a moment. “He just wanted my pay. He didn’t really care about us. When I refused, he called the police and said I had kidnapped my sister.”

“Oh, Dulcie,” West said softly.

“They brought me in to the station, but the chief knew the owner of the grocery store where I was working,” she said. “He understood the situation and they agreed to let me go if I didn’t try to take Delphine again without formal custody.”

“That’s good,” West said, nodding.

“But my dad will never give up custody,” Dulcie said. “And I knew she wasn’t really okay there. So, I went to a social worker, and she told me that unless I had a real place to live, with a lease and a separate bedroom for my sister, there was no point trying to take her from him. And I definitely couldn’t afford all that.”

West winced and nodded again.

“You found the money?” she asked.

“I wondered why you said you didn’t have money for anything,” he admitted.

“I don’t,” she said simply. “None of that is my money. It’s Delphine’s, to get her someplace safe. I would have been happy to sleep off a concussion on the floor of the shop rather than spend a penny of it.”

“I understand now,” West said.

His dark eyes met hers and she realized that he did. He really did.

“This winter, they had to reduce my hours at thegrocery store,” she told him. “The owner’s daughter was coming home from college on break and wanted to work. So, I came up here, hoping I could earn more faster with some seasonal work. My grandfather was up here for the winter a long time ago, and he said there was plenty of work and that the people were good…”

Suddenly the tears were threatening again. West grabbed her hand and squeezed it, but he didn’t speak.

“So, I took the car and drove up here,” she said. “My dad lost his license a million years ago. And it was always supposed to be mine when I turned sixteen anyway. I’m surprised he even noticed it was gone.”

“How did he know you were here?” West asked.

Shame clenched her heart like a fist, and she looked down at her hands.

“I’m not positive,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure it’s my fault. I got my sister a cheap phone when I left. I text her sometimes, when I miss her. She never texts back, so I thought my dad had probably found the phone and sold it, but I guess he hung onto it. I sent her a picture of the park the day of the tree lighting. He probably figured it out from the signs in the photo.”

West nodded, nothing but empathy in his dark eyes.

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