Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
MIA
Isee him from a distance, sauntering toward me.
Ebony hair glistening blue in the sunlight. Square-cut jaw and chiseled face. Gait wary, with a slight limp. Eyes black as a starless sky.
My breath catches in my throat as I walk the clothesline, singing and pinning up white sheets and towels. They flutter in the breeze like ghosts, billowing, unfurling, hiding, and then revealing him to me over and over as he draws closer.
My chest aches, eyes dangerously stinging. Why do I always want the one thing I can’t have? The one person not interested?
But my body won’t listen. A wide grin seizes my face as he draws near, heat radiating from my cheeks. He puts his hands on his hips, staring too long. Like he’s recognizing something that was always there.
“Ms. Love.”
“Holt.”
His eyes narrow, jaw tightening. “Dryer broken?”
I shake my head. “Wanted to do something the old-fashioned way for once.” The way that makes it feel worthwhile.
He nods, brows furrowing. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
He hesitates, mouth working. But nothing comes out. I return to my clothespins and line, humming softly to myself.
Grandma speaks through the whispers of the wind-rustled fabric. Like she talks to me through the yarn and crochet hook. The only person who wanted me—not Mia Love.
Warmth may lurk behind Maverick’s eyes, but he’s no different from everyone else. I’m a means to an end for him. To secure his job. To satisfy his need for responsibility, hard work, whatever.
“Can I help you?” He removes his Stetson, wiping the back of his arm over his forehead.
“No, thank you.”
His face goes stony, body stiff and straight. Wheeling around, he strides away.
Only then, with his back turned to me, do I ask, “What’s the plan for me?”
He stops, head dropping, though he never looks back.
I add, “I know about the cease-and-desist.” I swallow loudly. “Edwin contacted me, too.”
“And what did he say?”
I shrug, though he never looks back. “He talked about contracts, the guardianship … what will happen if I don’t go back on my meds.” I laugh bitterly. “Concerns about my well-being. All very reasonable, even altruistic.”
“Sounds like what happens next is up to you,” he murmurs.
I snort. “Sounds like the opposite of that to me.”
“What do you want, Mia?”
Already told you, but you didn’t listen.
The sting of rejection from earlier still lingers. I’m not used to that … or wanting a different outcome.
“I want time,” I whisper. “Quiet. A moment to breathe.”
He nods, eyes straining to the distant horizon. “We’re trying to buy you that. But we need more information. A better understanding of what this all is.”
I freeze, the last glimmer of hope about Maverick evaporating. He’s not here because he wants to be. He’s here because it’s another job. My trusting him hasn’t been connection. It’s been transactional all along. Like every other aspect of my life.
That’s when I know I have to do this alone.
A thousand questions fill my head. Is that why my parents hired Lone Star? Is that why they let me choose Maverick? Because they’re trying to help me, like Edwin? Or is it about what everyone wants—a money maker?
My voice trembles. “I imagine you’ve seen the papers yourself. Edwin said Lone Star got served.”
Maverick nods, wheeling back around. His eyes are dark, dangerous.
“Edwin promised to make things easier if you go back now,” he says flatly. “That’s his word. Not mine.”
I step back, absorbing the hard sting of his words. I knew Maverick was all business. But I never thought he’d offer the same temptation as my manager.
“Easier isn’t easy.”
He steps closer, forehead creases deepening. I could almost read his face as concern. But I can’t make that mistake. “Easy isn’t what you want, anyway.”
I look down at the wicker hamper filled with freshly washed linens. Doesn’t matter what I want. No need to waste my breath saying it, though. If he hasn’t figured it out yet, he never will.
I raise my chin, eyeing him coolly. “I’ll be in shortly.”
He stops, mouth working. I almost think he has more to say, but nothing comes out.
Turning back to the laundry, I grab another piece, pinning it up.
“Gonna do a perimeter sweep. Be back shortly.”
I nod without answering.
The white tile of the kitchen countertop glares at me, cool and uncaring. Burnt orange and white bottles line the counter in neat rows. The instructions echo the pattern of my life.
Take with food before bedtime. Take on an empty stomach. Three per day when symptoms persist. May cause drowsiness, depression, apathy.
Actually, it’s my life causing these things.
The phone is beside me again. Edwin is using a different number to communicate with me. He assures me he’ll keep using new lines until I realize blocking him won’t change a thing.
I pop a child-proof cap, shuffle a few white pills into the palm of my hand. Take enough, and I won’t care anymore. Take more, and it won’t matter.
You can be a zombie as long as you don’t wake up. Edwin knows this well. That’s why the prescription regimen started young. Along with the gaslighting, the manipulation, the abuse that made me second-guess myself.
But going back to that life now? Not possible.
Maverick stands in the hallway, half shrouded in shadow, observing me. Face watchful and clouded, features rougher and more rugged than I’ve ever seen him.
My eyes flicker to his, absorbing the warmth he can’t hide, hating the restraint that hangs like a paper-thin shield between us.
“Edwin says I’m crazy. That I would implode my life without him.”
The black-haired cowboy shifts uneasily, folding his arms over his broad chest.
“But there’s not enough here to control me anymore.” I rub a hand over my face, exhaling loudly. “Don’t worry, though,” I say low and raw. “I have a plan.”
“And what’s that?” he grumbles, face hard as granite.
“Does it matter to you?”
Pain slashes through his face for an instant. Then, a stony resolve. I could almost think I imagined it. But I know better.
“What do you do when you need something from the store?” I ask.
He straightens, jaw ticking. “I get it.”
I nod. “Easy. Simple. But if I go out in public? It’s a madhouse. Paparazzi everywhere. Journalists scrutinizing me. Tabloids jonesing for the worst angle of me. The moment of disgust, the bad outfit, the unfiltered sentence that they can use against me over and over again.”
“And Edwin?” His voice sounds softer, but I can’t mistake it for care.
"Edwin protects me. Edwin cares for me. Edwin keeps me sane and safe and…” My eyes drop back to the line of bottles. “Medicated.”
“With all due respect…” he drawls.
I arch an eyebrow waiting.
“He’ll use you until you have nothing left to give. He’ll take and take and take. Your fame, your talent, your beauty, your youth … until you become exactly what he’s trying to make you.”
“And what’s that?”
“Disposable.”
He doesn’t say the last part like some abstract hypothetical. He says it like a man who knows the sting of losing it all.
“People like you have spent their whole lives learning how to be. People like me inhabit glass cages.” My voice quivers at the end.
“You could figure it out if people would let you.”
“And I will figure it out,” I answer too quickly. “Alone.”
With a sweep of my arm, I send the medications cascading into the trash bin beside the counter. Plastic bites the air. Pills strike hollow and final.
Maverick’s face stills, his eyes brooding. They slide past me to the window. Another sweep of the room, like assassins will jump out of the cracks in the floors if he doesn’t keep watch.
“Laundry’s dry. I’ll help.”
I open my mouth to refuse the offer, but the determination in his walk tells me to save my breath.