Page 113 of A Heart So Haunted
I dug my fingers into his hand, his shoulder. “Don’t I?” I asked vehemently. “That’s—disgusting to subject you to those—memories a-and—”
“Landry,” he said, firm. “She likely did not know how the house, the curse, would treat me. I was in a different place when it happened.”
“But that’storture.”
“You do not realize what I turned into as an adult.” He swallowed. “I remember when I came back from Fort McKavett. Hot, muggy month. Late August. God, I was …” He shook his head. I lost myself in the sway, the smell of him, how we bent together in all the right ways.
“I was inconsolable. I was—ruined. Imagine, I killed my father. Lost my wife. I traveled west for years, leaving my affairs in such disarray. Iwantedit to fail. I wanted everyone to suffer like I had. And finally, a man I was chasing took me toward Stetson. I decided to stop for the night. And there I was, consumed with hatred for … everything. I was still wildly upset with my father, with myself for putting up with him for so many years, and I was angry that no one did anything to help me but Bunny. A part of me snapped. I ruined the front parlor. The office. Planned to burn the place to the ground and kill myself.”
I pictured it, his voice rumbling in my ear, and stepped on his foot on accident.Kill myself.Those two words.
His mouth settled against my hair, right at my temple. “Oh, yes. Our stableman, Revley, heard Bunny screaming at me, and tried to stop me. I knocked his ears clean back. Bunny caught my attention long enough to keep me from—but I,”—he shrugged, lost—“I came to pieces. I was mad at what my father had built. I was mad at myself. I hated everyone and everything, and if I’m being honest with myself, I am not so sure I wouldn’t have taken Revley and Bunny’s life had she not done what she did. I wanted everything to end that badly.”
My lip quivered. “Hadrian, I—”
“Do not pity who I was.Iwas wrong. I know this. Pitying only romanticizes the things I did, and I deserved every last bit of what I got in that room. I was running, and running only ever makes for a coward.”
I slid both hands away until I encircled his waist and hugged him to me. And here I was, ungrateful for the circumstances I had been dealt, with the parents I had been given?
“All I remember is Bunny stopping me. I don’t remember how or with what, because the screaming—she loved me. She was my mother from the time I was born, nursemaid or not, biological or not. From my infant years until I was thirty-five. No matter what version of myself I was, I was hers, and she was protecting me. Do not hate herfor what she did.” His thumb found my cheek. Brushed away a lone tear that raced down to my chin.
Maybe he was right. If Bunny hadn’t stopped him, how would things have ended? What lengths would he have gone to end it all?
Suddenly I saw Aunt Cadence, turning me away as a child. Telling me that Mommy’s home was better. The thought made me shiver. She knew something was wrong here and chose to push me away. Was it the same? To choose the lesser of two evils?
“All of that to say, as a child, I remember Bunny being vehement about the house. Keeping things clean. She never liked the things my father brought into the house. Granted, I was too young to know what she might mean.” He stepped closer, his presence nearly enveloping me. “She briefly had help from a friend of mine’s mother. I remember something similar to what your aunt mentioned—a cleansing, that is, but Mrs. Haste passed not long after.” The corners of his eyes crinkled as he gave me a pointed look. “Bunny could have messed something up. The curse, when she went to stop me. The feeling that had been in the house, that she’d tried to get rid of, and then keep me from doing what I intended—it could have culminated.”
“So it could be anything keeping you here. Something with an emotional tie … or remains.” The last two words felt like a pebble tossed in a rushing river. I didn’t like the idea of finding his grave.
“If they followed tradition, the grave is not on the property. I would have been buried near the river with the rest of the family plots. No bodily remains on house grounds.”
A tension knot uncurled in my gut. That was good. Good, because I wouldn’t be searching for a grave, but also good because that left us at another dead end.
A pause.
Then, “Do you hate me? For the decisions I made?” he asked.
I shook my head. His shirt was plush against my cheek. “No. I don’t hate you for what you did.”
“Nor I, you,” he whispered, and this time, those three words were intoxicatingly gentle, not laced with malice.
We swayed for a while. The playlist shifted to something a little more passionate. My feet and hips found rhythm with his; I matched his step, anticipated the weight shift of his body.
“I haven’t heard you talking in the middle of the night,” he said.
I managed a smile.
“I’ve missed your voice.”
“My endless ramblings?”
“Just you talking. I like it.”
“Really?”
“Your words give me traces of color, Landry. It makes me feel like I might live again, listening to your stories. So yes, I really do miss you talking.”
And for a split second, I thought maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t in a rush to figure this out because he wanted to stay a while longer, too.
