Page 81 of Love Notes & Lifelines
He stands behind the glass doors with his hands in his pockets. I shiver because even though I can’t be sure he’s staring at me, my body reacts as if his hands are touching me intimately.
Daisie is standing on her hind legs with her front paws pressed to the glass beside him. Why doesn’t he let her out?
Tabby grabs the stroller from my hand, but I don’t release it right away. I glance back at the house. Beck has opened the glass doors and is holding Daisie on a leash. He nods, then rubs his forehead in irritation, or maybe exasperation. Is he as confused as I am about everything?
“Emmy, can you show Miss Stella your moves with Leo?”
She jumps in place and claps her little hands. Whatever they’re talking about makes her happy, and it eases some of the panic that’s taken up residence in my chest.
“Moves?” I finally question, but Tabby is halfway to the house.
“I’m a yoga instructor,” Leo explains. “I do morning beach sessions. I moved them here when Cally—well—I moved them so she could watch, and Emmy could still participate.”
“That was…that was nice of you.”
His expression tells of pain and loss—he cared for Cally too.
“It’s what we do around here. It doesn’t take a lot to enter the mix, you just have to be a good person and the town will always rally around you through good and bad.”
“And if you’re not a good person?”
His face morphs into something almost playful. “Then you’ll wait thirty minutes to get a menu at the diner, and you absolutely would not get a welcome home parade.”
I frown. “Is that what happens to Danica?” What is wrong in my mind that I have empathy toward someone who so clearly only cares about herself?
Perhaps Silas did alter the chemistry of my brain with his gaslighting and narcissistic demands. Or this could be Stockholm syndrome, right, where I side with the wicked?
Leo waves a hand in front of my face, nods, and removes a backpack from his shoulders, pulling me from my pity party. Then he releases and unrolls two yoga mats. Who just carries around yoga mats?
“Don’t go feeling sorry for Delacruel.” His soft tone holds sadness but also conviction. “I promise you she wasn’t born with a good bone in her body. She was trying to poison puppies when she was ten.”
I gasp and shake my head. There’s no way she’s a cartoon villain in the flesh—her name is too coincidental for that to be true.
“I’m not lying. She had a neighbor who was a breeder and supposedly she couldn’t study with all the noise, but truthfully, she did it because Cally was getting one of those puppies and she wasn’t allowed to.”
Thank goodness it’s too cold out for bugs because the way my jaw hangs in the sand, I would definitely be swallowing flies right now.
“Luckily the Jacobses had a security system and they caught her before she did anything, but they handed over the rat poison to the sheriff. It was the talk of the town for months. She went to private boarding school after that.” He shrugs. “It’s kind of hard to come back from the name Delacruel.”
“She’s been bullied her entire life?” My head throbs. Not everyone is deserving of empathy. I know this, but I can’t seem to control it either.
“No, you’re missing my point,” he says. “Attempting to poison the Jacobses dogs was the least vile thing she did as a minor. Trust me when I say she would do anything to gain her father’s favorable attention, and when that failed, she went in the other direction. That’s when he finally started paying attention to her.”
I swallow hard.
“Listen, I have sympathy for her, but she was raised the same as her brother, and he wasn’t a monster. It’s how she’s wired. The fact that she hasn’t done something heinous enough to land herself in prison yet is shocking.”
“Davis was…”
“Davis grew up with Becker and me—he was two years older than us, but it never seemed to matter. It’s like he took all the good genes and left Danica the evil ones. All I’m saying is, have sympathy for all she’ll never have, but don’t feel bad for her. Her life is her making—she’s had plenty of chances to change her stripes. Come, have you practiced before?”
He waves me to the mat. Emmy is already on hers, sitting on her knees with her hands in front of her in the prayer formation.
“Do you like yoga?” I ask her when I adopt the same position.
She nods but holds a finger to her lips, and I bite my cheek to keep a serious expression that matches hers. I mime zipping my lips shut and she throws me a thumbs up.
Does who Danica is change the fact that a wealthy man is trying to ruin her?
