Page 41 of Deadly Little Scandals
“I get it,” Ana interjected softly. She tucked her blond hair behind her ears, her dark brown eyes oozing understanding. “I do, honey, and I’m leaving. I just…I needed to make sure y’all got here okay.”
I should have let her go. I should have told her to get the hell away from me. But some ghosts can’t be banished that easily, and my mom’s past—my past—had been haunting me for months now. Campbell’s statement in the waiting room, her assertion that we should ask Ana about the baby, wouldn’t be banished.
Somehow, what ended up coming out of my mouth next was: “I know who you are. You’re Ana Sofía Gutierrez.”
If she was surprised that I knew her full name, she didn’t show it. “These days, I go by Olsson—my mother’s maiden name.”
I wondered how long she’d gone by a different name. I wondered if she’d made herself difficult to find on purpose.
“I’m Sawyer,” I told her. “Ellie’s Sawyer.”
For a moment, something like nostalgia crossed Ana’s features. “Ellie always said that’s what she was going to name you, even if you ended up being a boy.”
I breathed in and breathed out and then spoke again. “You always imagined having girls,” I said, the words coming out hoarse.
Emotion flickered over her features, but she washed her face clear of it a moment later.
“I know about the pact.” I waited for a response, but the only thing I got in return for the statement was silence. “Where have you been, all of these years?” I asked. “What are you doing here? Why would you sleep withhim?”
Ana had been one of my mother’s closest friends. She had to have known who my father was. Didn’t she? Either way, she must have known that J.D. was married.
“It’s complicated, Sawyer.”
“Then uncomplicate it.”
Ana tried stepping past me again, but this time, I reached out and touched her arm. I didn’t grab her, but she ground to a stop like I had.
“Campbell Ames is in the waiting room,” I said. “She’s a friend of mine. And Lily’s. You know her father.” I let that sink in. Even though I felt like I’d swallowed cotton, I made my mouth form the question. “What happened to your baby?”
Three things occurred in the wake of that question. The first was that a nurse brought Lily back from her CT scan; the second was that Lillian and Aunt Olivia arrived.
And the third was that Ana Gutierrez placed a hand softly against my cheek, leaned forward, and whispered the answer to my question.
awyer? I just wiggled my feet! And my hands! And my temple!”
“Your temple? As in your head?”
“No. As in mylady temple.”
“Your lady…”
“Temple. Like how it says in the Bible that your body is a temple?”
“Oh, God. Can we just go back to the part where you were talking about your hands and feet?”
ong time no see, Sawyer Taft.” Walker greeted me the same way he had every time I’d seen him exiting Lily’s room for the past nine days.
Somehow, I’d found myself living in a strange alternate universe where Lily’s boyfriend was allowed to be in her bedroom with the door shut, and I wasn’t allowed in her room at all—the former by my grandmother’s edict and the latter by Lily’s. If Lily could have kicked me out of the house, she would have. Lillian was blaming it on the head injury, but she hadn’t seen the look on Lily’s face when she’d seen me standing there with her father’s mistress’s hand on my face.
“How is she today?” I asked Walker.
I wasn’t asking about the stitches or the concussion, and he knew it.
“She’s angry,” Walker said. “It’s a better look for her than sad.”
Lily didn’t, as a rule, let herself get truly angry. She didn’t lose her temper. Anything she could repress, she did. But this wasn’t the old Lily we were dealing with here.ThisLily’s father had moved out. Her mother was insisting on pretending that he was just being considerate, and once the gossip blew over, everything would go back to normal.
I knew, the same as Lily did, that there was no normal now. And while she’d had Walker to lean on, I’d been left out in the cold. She wasn’t talking to me. Nick hadn’t returned any of my
