Page 17 of Crossroads of Betrayal
And definitely not when he could park on a back road, and they could make out a little.
The memories of Chris’s hands traveling up her sweater spread her grin as she pounded up the steps and ran into the house. Her mom would kill her for her being late, but this time, she didn’t care. She’d do it all over again if it meant spending more time with the boy she was falling in love with.
A boy her mom would never let her see with the two-year age gap.
Darkness filled the front hall despite the late-afternoon hour. The sounds of the television blared from the living room on her right, the blue lights moving like shadows against the far wall. A pungent scent hit her nose. She stopped and listened for her mom. Maybe she was in her room, which meant Grace might get away with being home late. But it also meant her mom was having one of her bad days.
Tip toeing forward, she crept down the hall to her mom’s room. The door was cracked open. The smell grew stronger. Grace’s stomach churned. She inched open the door further. The light from the en suite bathroom split the darkness of the room, the artificial beam highlighting the broken woman on the floor.
A scream erupted from Grace’s throat, and she ran from the room.
Sweat poured from Grace’s brow and she bolted upright in bed, a scream of pain and terror and guilt echoing off her bedroom walls. She clawed at her tightening throat, her breaths coming out in ragged pants. Memories slammed against her, one after another, conjured from the nightmare she hadn’t had in months.
Light poured through her window, announcing morning. Anger smashed through the tangle of emotions holding her hostage. She had no doubt Zeke’s sudden appearance had brought everything she fought so hard to forget back to the surface. Unable to wait another minute for answers, she swiped her phone from her nightstand and dialed one of two people who might have led her ex to her doorstep.
“Grace? Are you all right?”
She winced at the worry in Whitney’s voice. Phone calls were few and far between, and that was one hundred percent on Grace. But when did it become the norm for her sister’s first reaction to be something was wrong when Grace reached out?
“I’m fine,” she said, combing her fingers through her long tresses to work out the tangles. Her black and tan tiger cat, Annie, padded over the white comforter and settled on her lap.
“Really?”
“Kind of,” Grace relented. She’d called for answers so withholding anything from her older sister was pointless. The best way to handle Whitney was to just come right out with what was bothering her. “Did you send Zeke to the retreat?”
Whitney sucked in a breath. “Zeke came to see you at work?”
“Does that mean you aren’t the one who told him where to find me?” She rubbed a hand over Annie’s head, pulling back quickly when the kitty nipped at her finger. She loved the little feline’s feistiness, something that had never fully left after Grace let the stray inside the year prior. She’d take a stubborn cat who made her work for her affections over a happy-go-lucky dog any day.
The hesitation on the line made her stomach roll. She’d placed a wall between her and Whitney, but she’d never expected her sister to be the one to share her location with her ex. “Whit?”
“I didn’t tell him where you work, but I may have responded to an email he sent about a few months back and told him you were in Tennessee.”
Grace swore under her breath, and Annie leapt off the bed. “Why would you do that?”
“I wasn’t thinking. It’d been a bad day and I had a hundred emails to wade through. I got it and was just on autopilot and responded.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Maybe I wouldn’t have been so caught off guard yesterday if I knew he was in the same state.”
More silence, but this time it spoke so much louder than anything either of them could have said. She almost told Whitney to forget it so she could hurry off the phone, but she swallowed the words.
“You haven’t exactly made it easy for me to talk to you. Since Zeke never came around or contacted you, I figured it wasn’t worth bringing up. I didn’t want to make our relationship even worse by admitting my mistake.”
The statement landed like a missile against her chest. She plopped back against her tufted headboard, suddenly exhausted by constantly holding her arms up to keep everyone away. And what had she gotten? A shitty relationship with her sister, no close friends to lean on, and a broken heart that refused to heal. Was being so closed off really the best way to deal with trauma?
An image of Tessa’s lifeless eyes morphed into those of her dead mother, and Grace gritted her teeth. She’d made her life what it was to protect others—to keep vigil and on guard at all times so her lapse of judgement didn’t lead others to harm. And all it’d taken was being near Zeke a few hours for her to fall right back into the patterns she’d tried so hard to break.
She couldn’t make the same mistakes again. Couldn’t forget her head and let her heart take the lead. “It’s fine. We’re fine. I’ve got to go.”
“Grace, wait. Talk to me. Please. Just let me in a little. How is Zeke? Did you talk to him or send him home?”
“He’s at the retreat to recover, just like every other guest there. My job is just to help when and where I can. And speaking of work, I’ll be late if I don’t get out of bed now. I’ll call later.”
“Okay,” Whitney said, dejection clear in her tone. “But I’m here. Anytime you want or need me. All you have to do is ask.”
“Thanks.” Grace hung up, her heart heavier than it’d been before the call. She hated where she was with her sister, but she didn’t know how to fix it. But at least she got one answer—Whitney might have scattered a few breadcrumbs for Zeke but she hadn’t told him everything. Which left only one person who’d insert herself into her business and send Zeke to her doorstep, but she’d leave that phone call for another time.
Talking to Whitney was hard enough, a giant elephant always wedged between them reminding Grace how her selfishness years before had cost them their mother, but it was even worse with Penelope. Grace’s impulsive nature had cost Pen so much more, and Grace wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to face her friend.
