Page 62 of The Banned Books Club

“It wasn’t as if I had a big vendetta or something against your father. People make mistakes.”

“Let me get this straight.” Cormac scratched the back of his neck. “You’re worried about what will happen tomein all this?”

“I know what it feels like to be the person your sisters hate,” she said with a laugh. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

She was hoping he’d laugh with her and let it go at that. She’d delivered her message, told him to stay out of whatever happened so he wouldn’t get hurt and returned the sweatshirt he’d loaned her. Her job here was done. But he didn’t thank her for coming by and move to open the door. He continued to look at her as though he could see right through her.

“What is it?” she asked, growing self-conscious again.

“What my father did was terrible, Gia. We should’ve stood behind you.”

She waved a hand. “That was a long time ago. I just want to forget and move on...if he’ll let me.”

“If he’ll let you?” he echoed.

“He’s so afraid I’ll destroy the cover he’s created that he’s trying to make things difficult.”

“Now? How’s he making things difficultnow?”

She’d made a mistake speaking in the present tense. She didn’t want to tell him about the incident at Delia’s Big Buns, didn’t want to make him feel as though he had to continue to protect her. “I meant...in the past.”

Hoping to get out of the house before she could blow it even more, she turned to go but he caught her arm. “You haven’t heard from him since you came back to town, have you?”

“No,” she said immediately but spoke with a little too much force and couldn’t meet his eyes. She hated to lie to Cormac, of all people. She’d been called a liar by Mr. Hart and certain members of his family for so long, she understood the value of credibility.

His eyebrows knitted. “What’d he do?”

When she didn’t answer, he gave her arm a slight squeeze. “Gia, you’re not nearly as good a liar as I once gave you credit for.”

Just the wordliarmade her flinch—and tell the truth. “He...he saw me at Big Buns earlier today and kept driving past—back and forth, back and forth. That would’ve been okay. It’s a free country, after all. But he pulled in before I could pack up and leave. Blocked me in, actually, rolled down his window and started yelling at me in front of the other people who were eating there.”

Cormac’s jaw hardened. “What’d he say?”

“The usual.”

“He was trying to intimidate you and discredit your side of the story.”

“Yes. He feels personally betrayed. He thought he should be able to get away with what he did, that I shouldn’t have outed him. Maybe he even believes the punishment was way worse than the crime. And that could be true. How much punishment is enough for something like that? Does anyone really know? The actual encounter didn’t last long. From that perspective it seems the punishment might’ve been too great. But the repercussions have gone on and on, so fromthatperspective... I don’t know. All I can tell you is that it was terrible trying to defend myself with him twisting the truth like he did.”

Cormac shook his head. “Because this isn’t just about what he did. It’s about what he did after. And to think I was part of that...”

“You didn’t know any better.”

“I do now,” he said.

“I won’t be in town long,” she reminded him. “At this point, let’s just let it go. Maybe screaming at me while I was there satisfied his anger.” She said that but didn’t really believe it. Somehow, Mr. Hart had made himself the victim in this situation and still seemed to believeshe’dwrongedhim.

“He’d better not bother you again,” Cormac said. “I won’t allow it.”

She gave him a pointed look. “We’ve been over this. You can’t get involved.”

“But I will,” he said.

And he’d proved it tonight.

17

Before she left, Cormac got Gia’s number. He wanted to monitor the situation better than he had in the past and knew it would help to be able to reach her even when she wasn’t sitting at the pool.

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