Page 96 of Lacey's Fight

Lacey frowned at her sister. Of the four of them, she and Pearl were the closest in age, only three weeks apart. They loved each other fiercely but they also drove each other crazy.

Which seemed to be what Pearl was intent on doing today.

“You going to just keep saying no or are you actually going to tell me who did send them?” she snapped. “Why all the secrecy?”

“Because we’re not sure you really want to know the answer,” Opal said gently, setting the plate of forgotten pancakes down on the nightstand.

“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t I want to know? I asked, didn’t I?” What was going on with her sisters this morning? They were being really weird.

“So, you want to know that this was all Ben’s doing? And that there’s a whole bunch more raspberry-themed stuff out there? Lip balms and shampoos and soaps?” Ivory asked.

Lacey groaned. “On second thought I’m sorry I asked.”

“You were the one who wouldn’t let it go,” Pearl reminded her.

“You guys could have just told me I wouldn’t want to know,” Lacey huffed. Okay, so it was really her own fault for pushing, but she just wanted one day where she didn’t have to think about the man who had completely upended her world.

“I think,” Opal said gently, “that maybe you really did want to know. Maybe you needed to hear that he cared.”

“I heard all about how much he cared from Coach pretty much the entire flight back home,” she muttered, but … maybe her sister was right, and she did need to know that he cared about her.

“He was a mess while you were gone,” Ivory said.

“You don’t even know him so how would you know if he was a mess?” she scoffed. Only maybe she wasn’t really scoffing and more pleading for reassurance. It was silly. Ben had told her in no uncertain terms he wasn’t interested, and she had accepted it even though it sucked.

Now she was so confused.

Ben had been there in New Zealand, and apparently, he’d come to California to see her. He’d brought her all these sweet gifts because he knew she loved raspberries, but she wasn’t sure she could allow herself to hope for something she had already come to terms with not having.

“Not hard to tell when someone is terrified out of their mind,” Ivory said in her sweet way. Not much ruffled her baby sister.

“He was married before, she was murdered,” Lacey told them. They’d mostly caught her up on The Master’s background once she got home. She had no idea how much they knew about Ben and his past, they hadn’t talked about him at all.

“We know. He said he wants a chance with you, that its why he came. But he doesn’t think you’ll give him one,” Opal explained.

“Will you?” Pearl asked.

Would she?

Right now, it was too exhausting to think about.

“I’ll talk to him, I just need a couple of days, you know? These last few weeks with everything that happened, all that bad stuff I thought I had buried has resurfaced. I just … need time.”

“You have all the time in the world, but …” Opal trailed off, a troubled look on her face. “Just make sure you don’t back yourself into a corner you can’t get out of.”

None of them knew what to make of their big sister’s cryptic statement, but from her tone it meant something.

Something Opal wasn’t ready to share yet.

That was the moment Lacey knew what she had to do.

Fear and self-recrimination had held her back all these years, leading to her using sex as a coping mechanism, and a way to keep people at a distance. She’d buried her feelings and tried to hide the darkness and pain she felt under a myriad of bright, cheery colors. But it didn’t take away that pain.

Ben had done the same thing. He’d hidden his anguish over losing his wife by heaping guilt on his shoulders that wasn’t his to carry.

She was ready to move forward, to change.

Maybe Ben was too.

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