Page 45 of Sensing Selma
He pulled my skirt up higher, and I could feel the roughness of the tree bark against my backside.
“I want you, too, Damen.” But this wasn’t the romantic situation I had imagined.
“You’re so sexy.” His husky whisper heated me up, almost enough to make me forget about the tree bark poking into my thigh.
I wanted him, too. I wanted all of him. But...
“How about we go back to your room?”I finally said.
TWELVE
Susan
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AFTER MY FATHER’S DEATH, I’d found myself going over and over his final days. Had I been dutiful enough? Had I told him how I loved him? Had I done all I could to help him? Had I been a good daughter to him?
Over and over again, like a tortured reel of guilt, the events of his last days played in my mind. I’d been busy and hadn’t had time to spend with him. I’d had so much work and my mind was elsewhere.
If only I’d taken the time...he would have come to me with his financial problems.I was a financial expert, an accountant, after all.I would have helped him find a better solution.At least help him not to have gambled away Selma Sanctuary.
I’d experienced a similar sense of guilt as I’d watched my mother grow more and more invalid. No matter how much I did for her, I sensed it just wasn’t enough, that I should be a better daughter; a better human being, a more giving and caring being.
The latest obsession was thinking and re-thinking of my last days with Brad. Had I misread him? Had I projected my own emotions onto him? What had I missed?
Why had he left without saying a word?
With his good looks and personality, he could have any woman he wanted.Perhaps he was merely playing with me, adding salt to the wound of him and his brother kicking us out of our own home.
Was Brad really that kind of man?Was he as cruel as his brother Jeremy?
There were no answers. No matter how often I shot the question out into the universe, there was never an answer.
After a few days of brooding over my halted relationship with Bradley, I finally found the strength to face the world again. Mother needed me, and while Holly was often off on her own, doing her thing, I knew I had to be strong for her as well.
What seemed to be her blossoming romance with Damen Dominic worried me. He was worldly, a well- known actor, a celebrity. He was miles away from the boys she’d known in Bath. Had she even the slightest notion of what she was getting herself into?
