Page 52 of Trails of Temptation

“Yeah.” I smiled, helping me squeeze into her raincoat. “Want to grab some lunch on our way out of town?”

“Milkshakes sound great,” she replied, then laughed as I struggled to zip her coat over her belly. “Don’t even try, Keely. I’ll split the damn thing in two. You’d think I was having twins!”

“Are you sure you aren’t?” I laughed, holding open the door for her as we exited out onto the covered front porch. It was raining in earnest now, heavy droplets causing dust to rise off the driveway as I helped Keely into the passenger side of my truck.

Neither of us said anything else for a while. I glanced back at the big house as we drove down the long dirt road leading to the highway, cursing under my breath that there was a thicket of trees blocking my view of George’s house.

“How’re you holding up?” Moira said after a moment.

“About as good as I can be,” I replied with a sigh, pulling out onto the wet asphalt and flicking on my windshield wipers. “I went to Pete’s last night.”

“What?”

“Yeah,” I breathed, shaking my head. “It was a mistake.” I told her about what Pete had said to me, and Moira cringed, slouching into her seat.

“Well, fuck that guy.”

“Right? What an asshole.”

“Were you guys even that close?”

“I thought so, I guess,” I replied a little sadly. I’d been trying not to think about it all that much but now that I had Moira alone, it did feel good to talk to someone about it. “I didn’t know how he really felt about me though, that I was a burden and something in the way of him and his—my parents. His mom practically raised me, you know. She never once said anything about the fact that I wasn’t really hers. I barely remember my own mother. She wasn’t ever around when I was young. I mostly lived with her sister and her brood of children. I haven’t seen or spoken to them since my mom died, and that was over twenty-five years ago now.”

“I didn’t know any of this until recently,” Moira admitted, her hands folded neatly over the swell of her stomach. “Grant wasn’t around here back then, so he doesn’t really know much about… the situation either.”

“I was too young to understand the scandal,” I replied, shaking my head. “I guess my dad was part of the church in town and him having an affair that produced a child, me, was just… unheard of. But I never knew any of that. Everything was a happy and loving at home. When our parents died when I was in my early twenties it was heartbreaking, and I guess I didn’t notice when Pete started to become overbearing because I thought it was just to protect me. To look out for me, you know? I didn’t realize he was trying to stop me from taking… from taking anything else he thought was his.”

That was what had been killing me the most.

That, and that his relationship with George was over.

“I think I fucked up,” I admitted.

Moira reached over and patted my thigh. “No, you didn’t. You fell in love with his best friend and he’s throwing a hissy fit about it. I have a hard time believing anything he said was how he really felt.”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe he did, and he’s felt this way about me the entire time.”

“Well, at least you know where George stands in all of this,” she stated with a soft laugh, lightening the mood. “I heard he threw Pete through the glass coffee table.”

“He did,” I chuckled. “Kinda hot, actually, having someone defend your honor.”

Moira smirked, giving me a side-eyed look. “Now you guys can move on and the silver lining in all of this is that Pete has space to work his own shit out, which seems like it was a long time coming.”

“I always thought George was the one who wanted to die alone,” I said after a moment, my throat tightening around the words. “I thought he was the one who just… wanted to be alone. It was Pete this whole time.”

“Well, good for Pete.” Moira shrugged. “He got what he wanted, didn’t he?”

“I guess so,” I breathed, forcing a smile. We drove on, occasionally chatting over the radio and the sound of rain. An hour ticked by, then another. I glanced down at my phone wondering if I should call George and check in on him, but something stopped me from doing so.

I knew George was the type of guy who didn’t like to be coddled. If he said he was fine, I had to trust that, even if I’d spent over an hour pulling glass shards out of his skin and bandaging up his body last night. I was sure I’d see him when we returned to the big house, but when I pulled my truck up the house, Grant was waiting on the porch. Alone.

He walked over, helping his wife out of the truck.

“Is George—” I began, but he cut me off.

“He’s not here, Keely.”

“What do you mean?” Something in the tone of his voice sent a rush of unease rippling through my chest as I followed them into the house. Moira too looked uneasy as we shrugged off our raincoats and Grant shut the front door behind us.

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