Page 60 of Silver Sanctuary
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she crouched down. “Embrie, run to Lily and Sloane, and tell them she’s here. Tell them you need to go upstairs to the apartment and stay there until I come up.”
Lacy watched Embrie’s eyes drift over her shoulders, her little body immediately shrinking in on itself.
“Mom? Do I tell them…”
Lacy shook her head. “I’ll tell them when I get upstairs. Just let them know she’s dangerous. Ask Gunner and Gage to go with you.”
“What the fuck is going—” Nash stepped behind Lacy, hispresence a reminder that she was safe. Embrie would be safe with their friends, too, while she dealt with a problem she wanted to believe she would never see again.
“Now, Embrie.” She interrupted his question. Brie took off running toward Sloane's office, and Lacy’s eyes never left her daughter until she was wrapped safely in Lily’s arms.
“I’m so sorry… I’ve been lying to you, but this isn’t how I wanted you to find out.” Shit. She was lightheaded, her heart pounding so loudly in her ears from the second she’d heard her mother’s voice call out from across the street. But nothing could have prepared her for what she saw when she finally got the courage to turn around.
Because the woman walking toward them looked healthy. Her skin was plump and peachy. Her body moved with control and grace. Lacy could see, the closer she got, that even her mother’s eyes looked clear.
This wasn’t the woman she was used to dealing with. Could she have gotten clean again? Would it work out this time? She absolutely despised that her mind was trying to pump hope through her body that maybe her mother had finally chosen her over the addiction.
Lacy needed answers, and she needed them fast. Maybe if she was able to get her mother to walk down the street, the conversation that needed to happen could avoid the prying eyes of everyone in town. Lacy moved to step away from Nash and her table.
“No.” Nash’s arm banded across her chest and stomach, his hand coming to rest on her hip. In one quick motion, he had her tucked safely behind his back.
“Nash—”
“Can I help you?” Nash held on to Lacy’s hip, not letting her move.
“Please don’t do this,” she begged as her eyes connectedwith her mother’s. “Please. Just go. You shouldn’t be here—you don’t need to be here.”
“I think I have a right to see my daughter.” Wow, her eyes really were so clear. There was no slurring to her words, and nothing about her appearance said she was using. But Lacy had fallen for the same act before. When her mother was sober before… when Embrie was born.
“You don’t—you don’t have any right. When we left, you agreed?—”
“I’m clean now, baby. It’s different this time,” her mother interrupted.
“It’s never different, Mom. I’ll never be your choice over the drugs.”
“You’re right. You won’t be.” Her mother snapped at her. Nash’s fingers dug into Lacy’s hip as her mother’s eyes snapped to his face. “I’m here to see my daughter, and you’re in my way. You can move, or I can make a scene.” Her mother crossed her arms, hip jutting out to the side as Nash continued to keep Lacy tucked away despite her best efforts to move around him.
“I’m Nash Caldwell,” he said, not offering his hand to her mom. “Lacy’s fiancé. You can speak to me because, unlike you, I will always protect Lacy and Embrie.”
Her mother’s eyes went wide. Lacy could see the wheels turning as she cooked up a new plan in her mind. Lacy felt the heat of her mother’s eyes land directly on her engagement ring. Nash was only trying to protect her, but he just made everything ten times worse with that admission.
“Well, that’s certainly one way for a mother to find out her eldest is getting married, but I wouldn’t put anything past Lacy. I’m not surprised that she didn’t tell me about her upcoming wedding. She’s always been a self-centered little brat. You’ll have your hands full with her, but it looks like you can handle it.”
She took a step forward and Lacy felt every muscle in Nash’s back tense under her hand.
“What are you doing here, Mom?”
“Like I said, I’m here to see my daughter.”
She slipped her hand under Nash’s, taking advantage of the freedom to move so she could stand next to him.
“I’m right here. But we should go somewhere quieter. Please.”
“You’d like that, wouldn't you? Then your fiancé won’t find out what you did that night?—”
She squeezed his hand. A silent promise to tell him everything later, and a prayer that he wouldn’t stop her from sending her mom away. “No. You told us to go, and we did. Don’t you dare try and say otherwise.”
“What you left behind wasn’t enough—not for what we suffered through because of you,” she hissed as her eyes darted back to Nash. “Seems like you’ve done well for yourself. Your soon-to-be husband should be able to provide what I need to keep quiet.”
