Page 27 of The Love Scam
“For what charity?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.” He settled on the end of the couch and fixed her with a dark blue gaze. “You must’ve been pretty upset when you heard Donna was dead.”
“We had grown apart,” she replied carefully. “But yes. It was terrible news.”Terrible.Yep. That was one way to understate it.Horrifying,that was another.Devastating, shocking,and, most of all,infuriating.She’d never get the chance to apologize. Donna would never get the chance to admit she shouldn’t have left the family.
“Went your separate ways after prison?”
What? Idiot.“No.”
“Oh. Um.” She could actually see him trying to cast around for another subject. “So how long have you known Lillith?”
“Not long.” Hell, it had taken her ages just tofindLillith. She hadn’t seen her since she was a baby, and tracking down an extraordinarily self-posessed girl with a mind like a razorand Donna’s eyes was… disconcerting. Donna had been in the ground less than a year, but Lillith kept her grief to herself for the most part. She got that from Donna, too.
“Well, she’s a helluva kid.” To his credit, Rake seemed genuinely admiring. “Smart and funny, and she doesn’t ever seem to lose any equilibrium.”
“Is this an attempt at a humble brag?”
“What?” he asked, astounded. “No! Even if it turns out I’m her father, I can’t take credit for her general awesomeness. And I’ve been wondering—if I’m not her dad, what’s going to happen to her?”
“Why d’you care?”
“Good God, I’m a jackass, not a sociopath. But I see by the look on your face that you’re reserving judgment.”
She laughed; she couldn’t help it. He’d caught her fairly.
“What I mean is, is there any family on her mom’s side? I hate the thought of her being alone in the world.”
Delaney shook her head. “No. Donna’s folks were only children and they died when she was a kid. No grandparents, aunts, uncles.”Just us. And if Donna’s fate is an example to go by, we’re not fit guardians. At all.
“Poor kid.”
“We all have that in common,” she said drily. “Literally and figuratively.”
“Well, I hope it works out for her,” he said, shifting uncomfortably. “One way or the other.”
“It will.” She grinned at him, but it couldn’t have been a nice grin, given how his expression faltered. “One way or the other.”
Seventeen
At first, it wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t fun, exactly, but it wasn’t like he was expected to shovel shit, an idea he mentioned to Delaney, who just smiled and said, “I’ve shoveled shit. It’s not so bad. Second hour’s the worst.” In fact, the most innocuous comments he made would provoke the weirdest/coolest/what-the-hell responses from her. It could be addictive if he wasn’t careful.
She hadn’t been at all worried about sharing a hotel room with a stranger, for example. He’d heard about the Minnesota Nice thing, and it was apparently true, even if it meant putting their own safety at risk. She’d explained that there was a sofa bed under one of the piles of Peeps, and he was welcome to sleep on it once he cleared it off. And like every sofa bed ever engineered, the bar hit him square across the middle of his back, because furniture designers are psychopaths. Still, it wasn’t a park bench, which, while more comfortable, would have been much colder.
He’d liberated the spare blanket from the closet,
(“Ah-ha!”
“What? You thought it was a treasure hunt? Putting a spare blanket in the closet isn’t hiding it.”
“Don’t spoil it! This is all I have right now!”)
slid between the blanket and the bar, got comfy, then glanced over. “Delaney?”
“Hmmm?” She’d changed into a pair of tattered black cotton shorts and a purple T-shirt with the logoI JUST WANT TO DRINK WINE, SAVE ANIMALS, AND TAKE NAPS.*She’d climbed into bed ten minutes earlier and was working on a laptop. “What? You want another pillow? They gave me eight, I’ll never use ’em all.”
“No, I’m fine. Listen, you don’t, uh, have to worry. About anything happening. I mean, about my trying anything.”
