Chapter 12
“He’s the man you’ve been running away from all this time.”
—Gertrude Chandler Warner, The Boxcar Children
“You called me ‘lover.’” Dancy resisted the urge to rest her head on Clint’s shoulder as they left the patio behind.
“I’m not crazy about his attitude toward you.” He steered her toward the front of the house. “Quite a scene back there.”
The lights in the driveway spilled hazy half-circles along the cobblestones as he released her. “I can’t seem to stop making
an idiot of myself.”
“You were right. The water was too hot.”
“She’s twenty-two!” Dancy’s indignation once again gathered steam. “She’s practically a child. And she has no idea how to
carry a baby.”
Clint said nothing. He didn’t need to. Her indignation faded.
“I know. I need to get a grip. Women a lot younger than Bisa have been having babies for centuries, and I’m a jealous bitch.
” Watch pranced ahead of them on a long lead as they reached the end of the driveway.
“Are men biologically programmed to be attracted to younger women, or are they simply jerks?”
He slipped his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “Speaking personally? Sometimes it’s just easier.”
“Is that what you want? Easy?”
“It beats tough.”
They turned onto the gravel road. Above them, a half-moon offered enough light to see ahead. “Was it really Ashley who made
you so cautious, or did I get there first?”
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but after my initial heartbreak, I only felt an intense desire never to see you again.”
“And yet here we are.”
“Here we are.”
A silence fell between them. Watch slowed to a trot. “The good news is that I like your dog,” he finally said.
“He’s a good dog.” She had to ask. “The animosity? Do you still feel that way?”
She detected a smile in his voice. “You’ve been kicked around enough that you’ve satisfied my need for revenge.”
“That’s good.” The night seemed to wrap its arms around them. If she ever fell in love again, she’d want it to be with someone
like Clint, but how many Clint Garretts were there in the world? “By the way,” she said. “I found my driver’s license. In
my purse. Funniest thing. It’s been there all along.”
Clint saw right through her. “You really didn’t want to go to that animal shelter by yourself, did you?”
“I was having a weak moment.”
He chuckled. They walked on in silence, the country sounds embracing them: the hoot of a distant owl, the chirp of crickets, the clicking of cicadas.
“One summer when I was seven or eight, I collected cicada shells and hid them all around the kitchen,” she said.
“It drove our housekeeper crazy. Eventually, I convinced her that cicadas loved celery, and if she’d quit putting it in everything, they’d go away. ”
“I take it you weren’t a fan of celery.”
“Hated it then. Like it now.”
“Did she believe you?”
“She wasn’t too bright, and I was very convincing.” She grinned. “What’s interesting is that, as soon as she stopped buying
celery, all those cicada shells magically disappeared.”
“Amazing how that worked.”
His amusement caught her up in a nameless longing. She wanted to give him something, but she had nothing to offer except a
part of herself. She kicked away a piece of gravel and made up her mind. “What happened with Mick . . .”
His amusement faded. “Are we back to that again? Let it go.”
The shadow of shame and regret engulfed her. She tried to push it away. Instead, the words she’d held on to for so long spilled
out. “It wasn’t consensual.”
He stopped walking. “What do you mean?”
“What I said.” She couldn’t look at him, and she kept moving.
“Are you telling me he raped you?” Clint was once again at her side.
She kept her eyes straight ahead. “Not exactly.”
“How ‘not exactly’?”
His voice was hard steel, and it was time for brutal honesty. She curled her fingers into her palms. “I led him on. I used
him to make you jealous, so I sort of deserved it.”
His steps faltered. “Do you hear what you’re saying?”
She picked up her pace. “Hey, if you play with fire, sooner or later you end up with blisters.”
“Hold on!” He caught her hand, stopping her from walking. “Did you use the word ‘no’?”
“More than once.” She forced herself to look up and meet his eyes, no longer ocean blue, but a deep navy in the darkness.
“You need to understand. I’d been playing him. Anytime other kids were around, I was all over him because I knew they’d tell you.”
“Jesus, Dancy, you were seventeen!” He released her arm and tunneled his hand through his hair. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
The nighttime breeze brushed across her bare midriff, chilling her. She gazed into the woods along the road. “It was a long
time ago. I don’t remember.”
“I doubt you’d forget something like that.”
She started walking again. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“Tell me.”
She owed him this—warts and all—and she drew a deep breath. “His parents were gone, and Mick was having a big party at his
house. I wanted to go, but you told me you couldn’t because your cousins were visiting, and your parents said you had to hang
with them. I thought I was more important than your cousins, and since my parents were never around to say ‘no’ to me, I didn’t
see what the big deal was, and I told you to sneak out. You refused.”
Once again he fell into step, walking next to her but still giving her space. “I remember.”
“It felt like one more sign that I was losing you, so I hit back. I said I didn’t need you to have a good time, and I was
going alone.”
“That’s the night it happened,” he said flatly.
She nodded. “I was furious with you, so at the party I gave Mick the full treatment. Hanging on his arm, laughing at whatever inane thing he said, and making sure everyone saw that he was crazy about me so they’d tell you.”
A night bird called out a warning from the trees. “I started feeling sick to my stomach. Somebody was in the downstairs bathroom,
so I went upstairs, and when I came out, he was standing by the door. He pushed me back inside and started kissing me. I remember
how sloppy it was. Wet and gross. He tasted like onions.” She shivered. “I was wearing a short dress, and he ripped it when
he pushed me down. I banged my head on the toilet when I fell, and I could hear the kids laughing downstairs, and what he
did hurt so bad I might have blacked out. When it was over, he got up off me and asked if it was good. I punched him as hard
as I could and ran out the back of the house.”
“You should have gone right to the police!” Clint’s outrage cut through the air.
“Do you really think they’d have believed me after the way I acted with Mick?”
He had no answer for that.
Watch growled at something in the woods. She leaned down to stroke his warm body. “I drove to your house and sat in my car.
All the lights were on inside. I could see people moving past the windows and hear music playing. It had started to snow—one
of those wet, early spring snows. Everything looked so bright and clean, and I felt so dirty.”
His voice was tight, hard. “You weren’t the dirty one.”
“My motivations were.” Watch rubbed against her leg, his presence comforting.
“After Mick told everyone, I convinced you he was lying, and you, like the naive kid you were, believed me.” Her throat tightened.
“Who knows what would have happened if you hadn’t found my underpants on that bulletin board?
And props to you. You didn’t break up with me over the phone like most sixteen-year-olds would have.
You did it face to face like a man. Even then, you knew how to do the right thing. ”
His soft exclamation sounded like distress. He closed the distance between them and touched her arm. She moved away, keeping
that small separation between them. “I was shattered. Instead of facing up to what I’d done, I lashed out. I told myself it
was your fault because you didn’t love me enough to go to the party with me. I tried to get back at you—maybe even get you
kicked off the team—by telling everyone you were smoking so much weed you couldn’t satisfy me. What seventeen-year-old does
something like that?”
“A troubled one.” His shoulders hunched. “Dancy, you were raped, and you didn’t deserve that no matter how much you led Mick
on. Women have been leading men on for centuries and not getting raped because of it.”
“I know you’re right, but . . .”
“What’s nearly as disturbing is that you still somehow believe you deserved it.”
“I don’t really think that. But I—”
“I’ve never known anyone as anxious to beat herself up over the past as you are.”
“Actions have consequences.”
“So you keep saying, but you’re not the villainess you seem to believe you are. Since you got here, you’ve rescued a stray
dog and put yourself in harm’s way by trying to help a woman you don’t even know. Even tonight . . . That thing with the hot
tub.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“What if another woman told you this happened to her? Would you tell her she deserved what she got?”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?” He moved in front of her, forcing her to look up at him.
She turned her face away. “Old habits die hard.”
He touched her chin. “What would your life look like if you felt a little compassion for the kid you were instead of villainizing
her?”
She closed her eyes against the comfort of his words. “But I hurt you so much.”
“Not as much as you’ve hurt yourself,” he said softly. “You seem to make a habit of cutting other people more slack than you’re
willing to give yourself.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“And I’m sure it is. For a smart woman, you have a blind spot, and as soon as you get back home, I hope you find a good therapist
to straighten out that twisted brain of yours.”
His anger was comforting, but she couldn’t let herself off so easily. “Self-compassion can be dangerous to a person who grew
up so self-centered.”
“Then how about feeling some compassion for a girl with parents so selfish they left their kid to raise herself. The way I