Since her arrival, we hadn’t discussed what Sarah had gone through.
I figured she would share when she was ready. Instead, we had focused on the “now”—her room, all of the things Lily and Haley had gone out shopping for, and the promise of a job at the boutique Pieces where Lily’s cousin managed whenever Sarah was ready to spread her wings a bit.
“Shit,” Lily muttered, bending over to pick up the hand towel she’d dropped.
That denim…fuck.
Sarah elbowed me like she had always done when wanting attention as a kid, and I jerked my focus off that perfect backside to find my sister staring at me. A small smirk lifted the corner of her lips, the first appearance of happiness I’d seen since she’d hugged me.
“You found your woman,” she whispered.
“I found a lot more than that,” I replied without hesitation, glancing over at Grey who sat on her other side.
Sarah shifted her focus between the two of us a few times. Blinking, her eyes widened. “No. Way.” She giggled.
She. Fucking. Giggled.
Goddamn emotions I’d thought drained erupted inside me again, and I stared at her smiling face, so damn thankful I wanted to sob.
My baby sister was going to be okay.
“The three of you, huh? That’s so hot.” She waved her hand like a fan over her face.
“Y-you don’t think it’s an abomination?”
Sarah snorted. “I might have been stuck beneath those bullshit beliefs of Abraham’s, but I never took them on as my own.”
“Thank fuck,” I grunted the curse, a shit ton of heaviness I’d had lingering over my head concerning my sister dissolving.
Her smile faded, but our gazes stayed locked.
“It’s going to be okay,” I told her what I’d already said a dozen times. “The FBI is going to shut that place down, and Grey said he would fly Franklin out here to be with you.”
Sarah glanced at the empty coffee cup in front of her and the small plate that held nothing but cracker crumbs. “He won’t leave his family.”
“I thought he loved you?”
“He does, but he’s got four younger siblings, and his parents are two of Abraham’s closest confidants.”
“You think they’ll be found guilty of something or another when Quell is?”
“Without a doubt. I have so much stored up in my brain—” Sarah tapped her temple “—the things I saw as his supposed wife…”
“Is the marriage between you and Abraham Quell legal?” Grey asked.
Sarah snorted again, and I got a kick out of the hint of rebellion she portrayed. “He wishes—or wished before he caught me kissing Franklin—but a claiming before his flock and God on the village green doesn’t mean squat.”
I snickered at the term she used instead of shit—one our father had been fond of since cursing meant time in the box.
She shrugged as though unaffected, but the haunted look taking back over her eyes claimed otherwise. “Knowing him, he’ll denounce me in the same way he claimed me, and that will be that.”
Lily finished cleaning up, and Grey pushed back his chair, patting his knee. She perched there, wrapping one arm around him and resting her head on his shoulder.
“I think we’re all pretty exhausted,” I said as I once more realized I had close to zero energy left inside me. “It’s not even ten, but I’m ready to crash.”
“I can have Haley come pick me up,” Lily said, sliding off Grey’s lap.
He grabbed her hand and tugged her back against his side, shooting me a quick glance, a question in his eyes.