Page 79 of Somebody's Watching Me
“Love the imagery.” He laughed, amused as hell. “But if that were true, then why were you whispering my name in your sleep last night?”
The absolute violation she felt had her shrinking into herself and returning to sit on the bed. “You are a sick fuck.”
“Ah, babe, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Chapter 19
“Do you want to read them?”
Jamison searched her father’s face, never having seen him look so vulnerable. The exhaustion didn’t help. Midnight had come and gone, but none of them could rest.
“They’re private.”
They sat on the bed in the room he was using while Simone stood silently in the corner. Rowan had pulled the phone call, and with everyone gathered to listen, the strain on her father’s face when his secret was revealed would be something she would never forget.
Or the look on Liam’s face.
As the voice of Michael Sinclair boomed through Rowan’s laptop speakers, the way Liam’s gaze had snapped to her at the end of the phone call nearly stopped her heart.
“I can talk about it.” Her father gripped her hand tightly as if she would run away and never return. “We don’t hide from the hard stuff. Remember?”
The hard stuff. Like for him to stay at Haven House. He hated it here. Some of her first memories of him were when he would come to Haven but be unable to enter. Just physically unable. Simone had said he trieda few times in the beginning, but after that horrible day of CeCe and Toby’s departure, it had taken him years to walk through Haven’s doors again.
The porch hadn’t been a problem, though. Sitting in the rocking chairs parked outside the parlor windows is where Benjamin Fairweather became a dad to his daughter. They started slow, with their weekly conversations sticking to the basics of little girl life. Dolls, princesses, and the unfairness of eating vegetables. It turned out her aversion to green beans came from him.
When she entered school, he came to every event, often staying in the back to avoid drawing attention. Yet, as middle school hit, his visits waned until he went silent for a year. She understood now he’d been suffering, but to a girl at that age, the lack of communication took its toll.
And once he did start to come around again, she had purposely made their time together difficult. The family vacations were born from those days. Her father’s bright idea to draw his children together and reform the bonds he had lost with them. It worked. Spectacularly. She and Selah were already close, but Samuel was the odd man out in her mind, and those vacations changed their relationship, and their relationship with their father. The four of them became a unit, creating a uniquely new kind of Fairweather family dynamic. She and her brothers were allowed free rein over what they were to do and see, and being in her early teens, it had been fun to have a little control. Selah took on the role of activities coordinator, while Samuel functioned as the voice of reason with his;no, they could not hike thirteen miles to see a volcano.
Her job had been to figure out what they would do in their downtime, and she took it seriously. Everyone—including their father—left each trip with new skills, such as mastering Angry Birds or performing the full choreography sets of her favorite songs.
Samuel had zero rhythm, no matter what he said.
The last vacation they took together was directly before Toby. Everything changed after that, and she often wondered if they would ever be able to recapture those times again.
“I know hearing it was intentional is a shock.” Her father struggled with what to say. “But I can answer any questions you might have.”
“We don’t have to do it now, but I do have questions. After all the stuff… I thought I knew every little secret about this family and you.”
Simone snorted, and her father winced. “Not everything, but nothing like what you’ve just learned.”
“And whatever it is, it’s okay.” She squeezed his hand. “I like you just the way you are, and nothing will change that.”
He turned away, unable to face her as he spoke. “Life without Laura Jean is a near impossible thing. I slipped. One time, I slipped, but by some miracle, Samuel found me before it was too late. It really messed him up.”
“I get it. I really do,” she told him. “And this also finally explains why Samuel is such an asshole. I just assumed he was born with a stick up his butt, but I guess not.”
Her joke did the trick, and he faced her again, not bothering to hide his laughter. “He was definitely born with a stick up his ass.”
“Poor Evie.”
“She can handle him,” Simone said finally. “And if she can’t, that’s not our problem. Your father and I have a strict no-return policy. Them two. You. Selah. We’re not taking any of y’all back.”
Jamison grinned, and a knock at the door sounded. Simone opened it to reveal Selah. “What’s happening in here?”
“We can have a family discussion without you,” his mother said.
“No, you can’t.” Selah pushed his way inside. “Lenora is putting X-man to bed, so tell me what you guys are talking about.”
