Page 22 of Wicked & Wildflower

I let my eyes flutter upward, meeting his. I melt beneath his stare, summoning only a nod in response. “It’s late on a Friday, and I know you need to close the store. I don’t want to take up any more of your time.” His eyes soften at that, almost as if he’s going to disagree, but he says nothing. “Lucille, you have thirty seconds to pick a bathing suit and then we’re out of here.”

She runs up to me with some frilly, bright pink one piece. I carry it to the counter, and Everett tries to argue with me about paying for it, but I argue back. We finally agreed to give me the employee discount.

The bells on the door chime as Lou pushes it open. “Goodnight, Ev!”

“Oh, that better not be the nickname you decided on, Luce!” he calls back. She looks at him with furrowed brows, and he winks at her before his eyes filter up to meet mine. “Ten o’clock Sunday morning. Meet me here.”

I nod.

“Goodnight, Wildflower.”

“Goodnight,” I murmur back.

“That’s a good nickname, Mom,” Lou says as we make our way back to the car.

11

Wildflower

Your Mouth Must Be Dry From All The Panting

I’ve always hated thesound of slamming doors.

They remind me of my father, the way he stormed in and out of the house when I did something less than acceptable by his standards. Always me. Never my sister.

The first time he caught a boy in my bedroom, he slammed the front door so hard, the glass shattered. The day he found out I was pregnant, he slammed that door again, but the glass didn’t shatter—only I did. When he locked me in from the outside. When he never let me leave.

The last time I heard that front door slam was only a few weeks ago, when I went to see him for the last time, the last time before he rushed back into my life unannounced and demanded to see me. He hasn’t spoken to me since he left Pacific Shores two weeks ago with his tail between his legs. I don’t think he was expecting to find Everett protecting me. I don’t think he expected either of us to stay away at all. I think he was holdingout hope that Darby was obedient enough to go crawling back. I think he thought I was too dependent on him to run away too.

But I’d been waiting years to get away, waiting for the perfect moment.

When I put my house on the market and it sold, I brought him a check in-person to pay him back for the down payment he’d put on my house when I bought it seven years ago, plus some interest for good measure. Lastly, I informed him of some information I happened to dig up one night working late. He’d made a poor mistake of keeping confidential documents on the network drive for his company, and he didn’t know that I’d taken multiple programming classes in college.

I’d spent years looking for some kind of crack in his armor, something that could knock him down from the pedestal he rests upon, and just weeks before my sister’s wedding, I found it.

I planned to sit on those files for a while, until the right time. But once Darby ran away, I knew we’d need the leverage, especially once he tried selling our grandma’s house out from under her. He drained her trust account, thinking she’d fail on her own. Luckily, Leo had a plan of his own and ended up anonymously buying the home from my father, saving it for all of us. But I knew it wouldn’t have been enough.

My father would’ve kept trying to find ways to ruin Leo, to force my sister home, to prevent me from leaving. We knew better than to believe he wanted us around for the sake of family or because of love. For Dane Andrews, it was—had always been—about control. He couldn’t stand the idea of losing it.

So, I went over to my parent’s house that day. The house I grew up in. The house that had never been much more than a prison to me. I gave my father that check and told him I was leaving town with my daughter. Then, I explained the documents I was in possession of, and that if he made any move against my sister or myself to bring us back, to prevent us fromescaping him and that town, from moving on with our lives, I’d make sure he’d lose everything.

His empire is the only thing he truly cares about anyway.

The thumb drive in my nightstand is the armor I have against him. It’s what I used to protect myself, to protect my sister and my daughter. I didn’t expect him to fight to get it back, never thought he’d come to hunt me down for it. I told him if he did, I’d turn it in—turnhimin.

I guess he called my bluff. He must believe I have enough love for him not to hand it over to authorities, even though he’s wrong. It’s just the only thing I feel I have to protect myself with.

But it doesn’t protect me from the scars he left across my heart.

Wincing as a door slams down the hall again, I’m reminded of that particular fact.

I quietly slip out of my bedroom and into the bathroom next door. Lou stands in front of the mirror, her strawberry blonde hair a messy halo around her face as she brushes her teeth.

“Stop slamming doors,” I hiss quietly. “Your aunt and Leo are still asleep. They didn’t get in until very, very late last night.”

“Sorry,” she mumbles, mouth full of toothpaste.

As excited as I know we both are to see Darby, I’m trying to let them sleep. I stayed up to greet them briefly last night, but Lou had already passed out. I haven’t seen my sister since the morning of her wedding, all haunted eyes and hollowed cheeks.

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