Chapter Thirty
Question Your Instincts
With birdsong filling the trees, and a handful of rabbits hopping around Clo’s garden, I walked up the driveway toward the house.
Ever since I’d confessed the truth to my sisters about Belladonna a week ago, I’d been thinking about all the ways I could get our mother to leave Harvest Moon.
I’d offer her money, or whatever else she wanted, to get her out of town because, at this point I was willing to do anything to make Aster stop moping and smile again.
Flora loped happily beside me, her fur and paws caked with red dirt from our hike. She was going to need a bath again, but I didn’t mind. Her sweet demeanor, the way she stayed close to me today, was the only thing keeping me calm.
Clo was back in her spot on the second-floor porch, resting in the rocking chair.
Her far-off gaze fixed on the lake and the two herons who had made a nest in a little outcropping on the north bank.
The thick layer of clouds, faint scent of burning wood, the whip of the wind yanking the rust-colored leaves from the trees, were all signs that fall was creeping closer.
I pulled open the front door and made my way up the stairs, Flora on my heels.
The house was quiet. Usually when Belladonna was around, the place was in absolute chaos.
Dirty dishes filled the sink. Books on yoga and naturopathy sat piled on the countertops, and some kind of sitar music dripped out of the family-room speakers.
Before I could push out the screen door, Clo said, ‘There’s fresh sun tea in the fridge.’
‘I’m good,’ I said, sinking into the chair beside her. The roof’s overhang provided just enough shade to protect us from the late afternoon sun.
‘Did you light the fireplace recently?’ I asked.
‘No. Why?’
‘Thought I smelled burning wood in the air.’
She glanced back inside. ‘I suppose Bella could have lit one last night.’
I bristled at the mention of my mother and focused on the herons circling the lake.
‘Heard about the pool game,’ she said, breaking the silence.
‘Let me guess, you got a call from the judge, who by the way was trying to help Bryce win.’
She turned to me with an arched brow. ‘No, it was Mo. I think she’s having second thoughts about the article.’
‘Yeah, right,’ I said, still bitter she’d told Bryce about Max.
‘Dani,’ she said in a gently chastening tone. ‘I understand you’re hurt. That you’re working overtime to protect me and the girls, but sometimes…’ Her shoulders gave a little.
‘Sometimes what?’ I pressed.
‘All I’m saying is that if you give people a chance, they can surprise you. Do the right thing.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I bit out roughly. ‘Were you not sitting at the same table as me when Bryce accused us of having magic? And I learned after the pool incident, that he’s desperate. He needs the article to be sensational so he can draw interest. Reanimate his dead career.’
She took my hands and pressed them between her fingers. ‘He hurt you deeply, didn’t he?’
‘Bryce? Well, of course! He wasn’t honest about who he was when we first met.
And over the last few weeks, he’s basically interrogated everyone in town about us.
’ I left out how he’d made me feel cherished, even loved, the night we found Mara.
The deep brutal ache that coursed through my bones when I’d discovered what he’d written in his journal about us.
There were some details of my life my grandmother did not need to know.
‘I wasn’t talking about Bryce,’ she said.
The next breath stuck in my throat and I couldn’t speak.
‘Max was the first man you ever loved. The first person you trusted who was not a member of this family. I’d imagine that when he walked away from you, it made you question your instincts.
’ She glanced to where one of Belladonna’s gauzy scarves lay across the back of the couch. ‘Made you feel abandoned again.’
‘This is not about Max.’
‘Isn’t it? Bryce may have not been truthful at first, but I had a front-row seat to the way he watched you at the table.
That man is dedicated to his work, but he senses there is an important connection between you two.
That’s why he’s trying so hard to figure out a balance between how to save his career and still have you. ’
‘He did say he’d show me the final article before it went to his editor. That I could delete whatever made me feel uncomfortable. Promised he’d figure this out.’
‘That’s quite an offer.’
‘I still don’t trust him. How can I after… well, everything.’
‘That may be my fault.’ Belladonna stepped out onto the porch. Now I remembered where Aster got her stealthy approach. I had not heard a single footstep before she appeared.
To my shock, she wasn’t dressed in a frilly patchwork skirt and sheer blouse, but in a simple gray jumpsuit instead. Her face was void of her signature spidery eyelashes and thick black kohl. It was a shock to see her without a full face of makeup, and it made her look much younger than fifty.
Belladonna walked past me and that scent of hers, amber and patchouli, clung to the dry air. ‘Mother has told me about Bryce. About the article and your fears. And…’ She actually looked stricken. ‘Aster’s prediction about him.’
‘This has nothing to do with you.’ It was hard not to lash out at the lazy way she made herself at home in a place she could never bother to stay in for more than a few weeks.
‘It has everything to do with me.’ Her gaze darted to Clo like they were sharing some secret knowledge, which only made the rage in my veins bubble hotter.
‘From a very young age, I made you take on too much responsibility. In my deluded way of thinking, I considered you an old soul. Made it easier to take off on my own selfish wanderings, because I’d convinced myself you could take care of Camellia and Aster. ’
Clo tried to reach out and take my hands again, but I shook her off. This was all bullshit. Belladonna had never admitted she was wrong about any of her choices.
‘Your mother has been going to therapy,’ Clo said quietly.
‘It’s been hard, but I’ve begun to accept that I did many unforgivable things to you and your sisters. To my own mother.’ Her lower lip trembled. ‘And to my sweet and patient father.’
Her face may have been clean. The clothes on her body different. But those were all facades. It didn’t mean at her core she’d changed who she really was.
‘You can deliver as many apologies as you want, but they don’t change the years of pain you’ve caused Aster or Lia or Clo.’
‘Or you,’ Belladonna added.
‘Keep me out of this,’ I seethed.
‘That’s not possible. From what Clo has shared, that man from vet school, Max, he hurt you.
You pretend to be strong. Act like it doesn’t matter, but it does.
You’ve managed to build this impenetrable wall around you, because you’ve spent your entire life battling me, and the horrible things I’ve done to you.
That is a regret I will have the rest of my life.
I can’t change it, but you can choose to be different from me.
To open your heart in a way I never could. ’
Her words were too much like what Bryce said to me about being scared.
‘And why is that?’ I lashed out. ‘Why couldn’t you stay with my father or Lia’s father or Aster’s? None of us even know their damn names.’
Belladonna walked forward and laid a shaky hand against the worn railing. That faint scent of burning wood filled the air again. The once quiet lake now swirled with a choppy current.
‘Dandelion, honey. Take a breath. Listen to what she has to say,’ Clo said in that soothing tone.
‘No. This conversation has been brewing for years. Every time I try to have it with her, she runs away. That’s not happening this time.’
I waited for my mother to make an excuse. To turn and run. Instead, she planted her feet, set her shoulders, like she was ready to take whatever hard truth I was about to deliver.
‘Did you not care enough about us to tell us who those men were? Think we didn’t deserve to know them?
Have them in our lives? You stand there and claim you don’t want me to be like you, that you want me to open my heart, but how can I do that when I never had a real male role model?
Sure, I had Grandpa Beau but he was not my father. ’
‘I promise if you give me some time, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.’ She cast another weighted look at Clo that made me uneasy. ‘I owe the truth to you and your sisters.’
‘Bella, maybe now is not—’
Clo’s words were cut off by a jarring alarm blasting out of my phone. The screen filled quickly with a flood of texts from Lia that made my blood run cold.
The thick gray clouds. Faint scent of charred wood in the air. I should have recognized it. A fire was burning in a dry patch of land only fifteen miles away.
‘What’s wrong?’ Clo pulled the phone from my hand, her eyes darkening. ‘Bella, call Judge Greene and Eric. Tell them to bring their largest ladders. I also need them to tow over the portable water rig they have and all their hoses.’
Belladonna gave me a wide-eyed stare. ‘Wildfire?’
‘Yes. There’s not an evacuation order yet, but we need to be ready.’
Belladonna nodded and rushed inside to use the landline.
While we had a minute alone, I stepped closer to Clo. ‘What are the two of you hiding? It’s the reason she’s back, right?’
‘We can’t do this now.’
‘Clo,’ I pressed. ‘I won’t let her hurt Aster and Lia again. Neither of them can handle it.’
This time she clasped my wrist before I could step away.
‘You may not like it, but your mother is correct about one thing. It’s time you stopped pushing things away that are right for you.
Every single minute of your life you do not need to act like the eldest daughter.
Feeling like you’re responsible for everyone.
That you have to control all the variables around you in order to ensure things go right.
The way you’ve always acted older than your years.
How you keep all your feelings bottled up.
’ She glanced back to the house. ‘I know Bella has hurt you, but this time I need you to listen.’
I was about to protest, tell her that Belladonna had nothing I wanted to hear, when the groan and squeal of Lia’s Jeepster cut through the air.
Behind it was the grind of another engine.
I moved to the far end of the deck. In a swirl of dust, Lia’s truck vaulted up onto the top of the driveway with Aster holding on from the passenger seat.
A familiar black SUV was behind them. What the hell was Bryce doing here?
I moved through the house and went down the stairs, meeting them in the driveway. Clo followed me out the door.
‘You get my texts?’ Lia grunted, tugging at the red bandana around her neck.
Aster stayed behind her, her gaze fixed on the churning orange sky.
I wasn’t the one that could sense emotion, but by the tremble in Aster’s jaw, the steel in Lia’s voice, it was clear the wildfire was burning out of control.
‘Yes.’ Before I could say any more, Belladonna walked outside and Lia’s face became an unemotional mask.
‘Mother, I’ve called for the water rig like you asked.’ She smiled at Lia and Aster. ‘Hello, my girls, I’ve missed you.’
Lia ignored her and pointed to the garage. ‘Ast, help me pull out all the hoses. We need to hook them to the faucets on the north and south sides of the house. Start soaking all the dry brush as far as you can get the lines to reach.’
Aster stayed frozen, her gaze fixed on Belladonna. The pain etched into the lines of my little sister’s face was heartbreaking.
I gripped her arm, pulling her a few feet away. ‘Are you all right?’
She gave me a reluctant nod, her small body trembling. I needed to distract her. ‘Do you know why Bryce is here?’
‘He got the alarms too. Lia said he came to the station to ask questions, probably for his article. Insisted he follow us here so he could help.’ Her voice was barely a whisper.
‘If it’s too hard to be here with Belladonna, I can get Bryce to drive you back to the Blossom.’
‘No, I’m staying,’ she said roughly. ‘I’ll go help Lia with the hoses.’
Belladonna walked toward Aster, and I blocked her path. ‘Not now.’
She shrank back at the acid in my tone. I started to tell her to go inside when Bryce stepped toward us tentatively.
‘Dani, what can I do?’
‘You can go home,’ I said.
Bella raised an eyebrow and shot out her hand. ‘You must be Bryce.’
He glanced at me, waiting for an introduction.
‘This is Belladonna,’ I said flatly.
His gaze moved to my face, and I hated how his first reaction was to check in with me. Try to clock how I was feeling about my mother’s presence. My heart twinged but I pushed the feeling away. There were bigger issues to deal with right now.
‘Nice to meet you.’ Bryce gave her hand a quick shake. ‘Wish it could be under better circumstances.’
My mother gave him a look that was part curiosity, part suspicion. It was a little too late for her to pretend to care now.
‘Go inside, Belladonna. Take Clo with you. We’ve got things organized out here.’
Like she understood the grit in my tone, she went to Clo and coaxed her back inside.
‘How long has your mother been here?’ Bryce asked with a careful voice.
‘You need to leave,’ I said, no longer interested in answering any of his questions. My anger must have carried across the yard, because Lia stomped toward us.
‘Now is not the time for the bullshit that’s happening between the two of you.
’ She tipped her chin to the black smoke rising in the distance.
‘That is heading this way quickly.’ She closed her eyes, pulled in a full breath.
‘Those winds are going to gust up to forty miles an hour. We need bodies to keep the house and the surrounding property wet.’ Her eyes opened and turned hard. ‘Forget your drama and start helping.’
In years past when a wildfire had threatened the area near the cabin, the three of us girls had been able to keep it safe, but the rare look of fear in Lia’s eyes had me swallowing down my protests about Bryce.
Any fire this time of year was bad, but with our current drought conditions, despite the small bits of rain we’d had, the blaze could easily eat up dozens of acres within an hour.
‘I’ll go help with the hoses,’ I said.
Bryce was right beside me. The heat of his stare said he wanted me to look at him, talk to him.
Instead, I focused on working with my sisters to unspool the yards of green coils twisted together in the garage.
Our arguments would have to wait for another time, because right now all that mattered was saving the only place I’d ever called home.