Page 58 of One More Night

“No.” Shaking with anger for her, I argue with her past. “That’s bullshit. They had to have believed you.”

“Don’t you get it?” A spike of emotion thickens her throat. “The only mother I ever wanted—the only mother I everloved—stared at me as if I was a monster. There’s no coming back from that.” Her loss is a mirror that reflects mine. A stable family, career, and my long lost sanity.

All at once, I’m arguing with myself. “She would have listened to you. You could have told them the truth.”

But I’m a hypocrite, sitting here as though I don’t understand her struggle.

If I told my parents I was done, if I quit this whole other life I’ve been living just to keep us afloat, would they not see me as a monster, too?

Like a steel weight in the pit of my stomach, my own childhood mocks me through her story. My parents were loving, sure. They did the best they could and despite every mishap, they still do. But there were times I felt outranked and under-prioritized, which bred an unhealthy competitive culture that made for an unhappy home the older I got.

When I wasn’t on the island, I often found myself withdrawing from reality and throwing my time and passion into creating a new one. There, the pressures of being the perfect son or brother couldn’t quite reach me.

“I was unwanted, an outcast. A black stain to be bleached from their lives.” Heather’s spine straightens. “And less than a week later, when they filed for me to be returned to the agency, that’s exactly what they did.”

When we approach the gate to the pasture, Heather abruptly swings her leg over Sparrow’s neck and drops, unsteadily, to her feet.

“Where are you going?” I call after her before sliding to the ground.

With a determined grunt, she hooks her hands firmly on the metal fencing, then hoists herself overtop, crouching once she hits the grass.

From the opposite side, I watch her rise to standing with a willful, and uncompromising, shadow surrounding her.

“Heather.” Her name becomes a brittle plea, and I’m forced to swallow my warring emotions when she wraps her shaking arms around her middle.

“Leave me alone, Marcus.”

And then, she’s gone.

CHAPTERTWELVE

Heather

From inside the bookstore in Augustine, locals scurry down the street with boxes of supplies for theT’slastacelebration. According to the woman at the counter, the bonfire starts in the next hour, which gives me just enough time to find a good book to curl up with at the house while everyone else enjoys the festivities.

My fingers graze the cracked spines of various books on the ‘world discovery’ shelf. Lucy Vance has pretty decent taste in literature, but given my most recent interactions with Marcus, I’m on the hunt for something that won’t be stimulating the ol’ nether regions.

I flip open a book written by a local Topican on the unearthing of ‘magic and other oddities’ surrounding Tiger Falls, but a raucous round of giggling keeps tugging my attention toward the rear of the store.

Rising on my toes to search for the source of laughter, I spot an enormous pink and purple sign with the word ‘romance’ written in a bold typeface.

“Don’t you dare.” But the section is teeming with lively colors, fonts, and images that are begging to be touched.

Snapping the book shut with a heavy sigh, I replace it on the shelf and then creep around the corner of the bookcase.

“This is ridiculous. You don’t even like romance books.” My chastising mutters have unfamiliar eyes watching me.

I offer the elderly woman who’s glaring at me a polite smile and pick up my pace, slipping around another rack until I’m face to face with an entire wall of romance novels.

Bracing one hand on the edge of the middle shelf, the spot along my hairline blushes where he whispered comforting words that helped ebb the panic. It’s been two days since I all but opened my closet of skeletons, and said, “Here, take your pick!”

For the first time since leaving the Owens’s home, I revisited a moment when I was both loved immensely and then forgotten in a blink. I’m as tattered and raw as I was that night, but did his touches have to be so damn tender that they’ve left a lasting mark?

Not even scrubbing the knuckles he rubbed thoughtfully or the hip he fit his hand around as if the curve was made just for him could remove them.

The harder I fight this undeniable magnetism to him, the more the attraction grows, and it’s as frustrating now as it was when we first met in Augustine.

In a matter of two weeks, he's battered his way through a defense system that took years of detachment to construct. But at this point, the options for relief are risky at best and perilous at worst.

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