Live For Me (Blurred Lines #2)(33)
Author: Erin McCarthy

So he was detaching.

I couldn’t blame him. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

All the reasons he had hesitated, all the weeks he’d been fighting his feelings, and now his fears were realized. I was too young.

The house felt quiet, empty, as he grabbed his coat and took one last sip of his wine. He wasn’t speaking. I wasn’t speaking.

Bending over, I retrieved the Tiffany keychain with the car keys jingling on it and held it tightly before putting it inside my coat pocket and zipping it shut. He’d been so happy to give me a present and I felt that somehow I’d ruined it.

His phone rang. He answered it without apologizing to me like he usually did. “Hello?”

I followed behind him, giving Amelia a rub on the head as we went past her into the garage. The garage was heated, but I still shivered. A storm was definitely brewing. When Devin opened the garage door a wicked wind rushed in.

“Plans have changed,” he said to whoever it was. “I’ll keep you posted. Thanks.”

He tucked his phone back away in his pocket. He opened the car door for me. I got in. He shut it.

Then we pulled out of the garage and away from Richfield.

I saw the Christmas tree lit up in front of the family room window and I suddenly wondered if I was ever coming back.

Chapter Nine

Grandma looked like hell. She had lost weight and she lay against the hospital bed pale and vapid. Even when her eyes opened and focused on me, there was no spark, no recognition.

My throat closed up and I moved carefully towards her, reaching out to touch her hand. “Hi, Grandma.”

She pulled her hand out of my reach and gave me a petulant look. Oddly, it was reassuring. “What are you doing here?”

“Cat said you wanted to see me.”

For a second, she didn’t respond, her eyes closed. Then she said, “I need you to go clean the house. They say I’m going to be here for a spell.”

Sure, Cinderella could sweep the fireplace. I didn’t have it in me to argue with her. The doctors had told me it was unlikely she’d be coming home. She had stage four lung cancer and it was a miracle she was even speaking given the amount of pain killers they had her on. “Okay. Of course.”

“So where have you been?” she asked. “Is it true you’re some rich guy’s mistress? That’s what everyone is saying.”

My eyes widened and I felt my cheeks burn. It had never occurred to me that anyone in Vinalhaven would talk about Devin and me. Maybe going to the coffee shop had started gossip. “I am not a rich guy’s mistress. I’m a housesitter.”

“Who brought you here?”

So she was determined to shame me. I raised my chin. I wasn’t going to feel guilty. Devin and I had a relationship. “The owner.”

She snorted. “Of course. If you haven’t spread your legs yet you will soon enough. Just like your mother.”

Despite the fact that I could still feel moisture between my legs from the arousal Devin had stoked to life an hour earlier, I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of feeling dirty. My feelings for him were real. “Whatever issue you had with my mother, I think it’s time for you to leave me out of it.”

“I lied to your father, you know,” she said suddenly, raising her hand to adjust the tubing in her nose, her breathing labored. “When he came looking for you.”

That made me grip the bedrail tightly, my shoulders stiffening. “What are you talking about?”

“He came when you were eight, and in foster care. I guess he’d run into an old friend who told him your mother had a baby. He never knew you existed.” She gave a weak cough. “I told him you died in a car accident. Even sent him to the cemetery where your mother is.” She glared at me in defiance, breathing labored. “Go ahead. Tell me I’m evil. But he had no business being part of your life.”

I was having trouble breathing myself. My father wanted to see me? He had looked for me? It was the best news I could have ever hoped for. Yet I couldn’t understand how my grandmother could be so cruel as to keep him from me. Me from him. He must have suffered thinking he’d had and lost a child and never once laid eyes on me. Tears filled my eyes. So much hatred for no reason that I could see.

I didn’t want to perpetuate that kind of anger.

“It’s in the past,” I said. “I forgive you.”

“I’m not asking for your forgiveness.” Then she started wheezing so hard, it scared me. It sounded like she couldn’t pull any air into her lungs.

I pushed the nurse call button, who appeared and shooed me out of the room.

In the hallway, I wandered down to the waiting area, where Devin was sitting on a hard plastic chair, looking at his phone. He glanced up. “Hey. She doing okay?”

“No. She’s only got a few weeks at the most.” I wasn’t sure how to tell him what I had to say. “Cat is meeting me here. I’m going to go home for a few days to clean up my grandmother’s house.” She was going to die. Not even spite could keep her alive. I felt numb, but I also knew I wanted to go back to that house, the site of so much misery and boredom. The walls of my emotional confinement. I needed closure. I wanted to move on.

“Are you kidding me? Why would you do that?”

“Because I need to.”

Tossing his hair out of his eyes he opened his mouth, then closed it again. I appreciated the restraint. Devin stood up and finally, he gave me the hug I needed. His arms enclosed me and I leaned against his chest, closing my eyes, breathing in his cologne.

“Can I do anything? Do you need help? I can come with you.”

The thought of Devin at my grandmother’s was horrifying and comical. In fact, the image of him standing in her cluttered and tired living room was a slap in the face. He didn’t belong in my world. I didn’t belong in his.

“No, that’s okay, but thank you.” I looked up at him, studying his jawline, his lips, his strong nose. His dark and expressive eyes. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

Devin had made me feel desirable. He’d made me feel that somewhere, there was a place for me in the world. A home. That I had words, thoughts, love, to contribute.

He frowned, his hands tightening on my back. “Why does that sound like goodbye? You’re coming back aren’t you?”

I nodded. I would, because I had nowhere else to go. But I wasn’t sure that I could stay.

He shook me a little. “Promise me. We have unfinished business.”