Chapter 40 Lennox
LENNOX
I keep my eyes on Violet, relieved when Rhett makes her horrible sister and Andrew leave. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a panic attack, and I know it has to be handled delicately.
“Violet,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “Can you hear me?”
She looks at me with big, wet eyes and nods.
“Good. Okay. Is it okay if I touch you?”
She nods again, and I don’t waste a second before pulling her into my arms. She clutches my sweater with both hands, shaking against me. Her eyes are full of tears, and they spill over, running down her cheeks as she falls apart.
“What can we do?” Sawyer asks quietly.
“Get her some water and one of the big blankets.”
He nods and he and Rhett go to do that. I take Violet to the couch and coax her to sit down, keeping my arms around her.
“You’re here with us,” I murmur. “You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
I don’t tell her she’s okay because that’s clearly not the case, but it’s important that she knows she’s not alone with this. Whatever this is that set her off.
Sawyer and Rhett come back with the water and blanket and I have them join us on the couch. “Okay, Violet, I need you to breathe with me. Can you do that?”
She shakes her head, closing her eyes.
“Yes, you can. Come on, look at me, pretty girl.”
It takes a second, but Violet obeys, looking at me again.
“Good. Good girl. Now I’m going to put your hand here, alright?” I put her hand on my chest, spreading her fingers out so they’re splayed open. “I want you to feel my breathing and breathe when I do. It’s going to be hard at first, but keep trying, okay? Can you do that for me?”
She nods once more, and I take a deep breath, holding it a bit.
It takes her a few tries to be able to breathe steadily, but soon enough we’re breathing in a rhythm together. I keep praising her, and my brothers join in, telling her she’s doing well.
We breathe together like that for at least five minutes, and finally, some of the shaking has subsided in her.
“Here,” I say, picking up the glass of water. “Sip this slowly for me.”
Violet takes it with trembling hands, and Sawyer reaches over to help steady the glass. She sips at it a bit, and some of the horrible paleness recedes from her face, letting her natural color back in.
Once she seems over the worst of it, she sits back against the couch, closing her eyes again. This time, I let her.
“How are you feeling?” Rhett asks.
“A little better,” she says, her voice still shaky around the edges.
“I can’t believe that little prick didn’t even try to make sure she was okay,” Sawyer grumbles. “Are we sure he’s not adopted?”
“I’ll have a word with him later,” I say, already imagining what I’m going to say to my youngest brother about his behavior. But right now, I’m more concerned about what happened to make Violet panic so badly. “What happened?” I ask her. “What did your sister say to you?”
Violet bites her lip and takes a shaky breath. “She’s taking my bakery.”
“What?” all three of us ask at the same time.
“How can she do that?” Sawyer wants to know.
“Remember how I said our grandmother was going to give it to her first?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, apparently she never took the building out of Isabelle’s name. Isabelle had—she had documents to prove it’s legally hers. I don’t think there’s anything I can do to fight it.”
“Even if that’s true,” Rhett says. “What would she want with it? And why would she want to take it, knowing you’ve already got a business started there?”
Violet laughs, but there’s no humor in it at all. “This is what she does. I can never have anything without her wanting it. She kept going on about starting her own business there now that she’s getting married.”
“Fuck that,” Sawyer snarls. He’s on his feet a second later. “Fuck that. Who does she think she is?”
A tear rolls down Violet’s cheek, and I reach up to gently brush it away.
“She’s angry, I guess,” Violet says. “That so much attention has been on me lately. This is her way of getting back at me. She can’t stand it when she’s not the center of attention.
My mom tried to tell me that I was making her feel overshadowed, but I didn’t think—” she breaks off, putting a hand over her mouth.
“Fuck, I guess I shouldn’t have kicked them out,” Rhett says. “We should have had it out right then and there. Do you think Andrew knows?”
“I can’t imagine he wouldn’t,” I respond. “You know what he’s like.”
We all trade looks.
“He was a spoiled brat,” Sawyer says with a snort.
“Always had to have his way, and when he couldn’t get it, he’d cry.
Judging from how he treated Violet earlier, I don’t think he’d try to stop his ‘pick me’ bitch wife from doing this.
Sorry for calling your sister a bitch, I guess,” he adds, looking at Violet.
She shakes her head. “It’s fine. You won’t hear me standing up for her. Not after this.”
“I could call him,” Rhett says, pulling out his phone with a dark look on his face. “Make him put me on speaker and tell both of them to get their asses back here until we can fix this.”
Violet just shakes her head. The panic is gone, but what’s replaced it isn’t any better.
She just looks hopeless now. There’s no light in her eyes, and her voice is flat when she speaks.
“It wouldn’t help,” she says. “Isabelle has the legal papers to prove it. I don’t have a leg to stand on since Grandmother isn’t here anymore.
She owns the building. It’s hers, and she can do what she wants with it. ”
The defeated tone and posture make my chest ache for Violet. Whenever she has a cause to not be the sunny, upbeat person she usually is, it feels wrong. Knowing that this was caused by family—hers and mine—makes it even worse.
That ache grows into a fire, anger spreading through me. Because this is bullshit. No one should treat family like this, and the fact that Violet is so resigned to it because she’s used to it just makes me even more pissed off.
“Fuck that,” I say, making her looking up at me in surprise. “They can’t get away with this. Even if it is legal, that doesn’t make it right. They need to know what they’re doing is wrong.”
“They don’t care that it’s wrong,” Violet insists.
“Isabelle doesn’t have a moral compass like that.
She doesn’t think ‘oh, Violet has been running her bakery all this time and it makes her happy and lets her pay her bills.’ All she thinks is that she doesn’t have a business and she wants one, so she’s taking the building.
All she ever thinks about is herself because she’s never had to confront caring about another person.
You can’t reason with someone like that. ”
I don’t tell her that I’m not thinking of trying to reason with Isabelle and Andrew. I’m more planning to rain hellfire down on them until they realize they’re selfish, narcissistic assholes.
But that can wait.
Right now, Violet needs comfort and support and not to be alone with her feelings.
Sawyer gives me a look over Violet’s head that tells me his mind is on the same track though. There will be time for that later.
I force down my anger and take a breath. “Okay,” I tell her. “We’ll put it aside for now.”
“Okay,” she murmurs back.
She stares into the crackling flames in the fireplace, not really seeing anything. I know that look. That hollow-eyed, listless stare. It’s the look of someone who’s been through something traumatic and is trying not to relive it with every breath they take.
It looks wrong on Violet’s beautiful face, and my heart clenches painfully in my chest. I have to do something to help distract her from the pain she’s feeling.
So I get up and force a smile, going over to where there’s a Santa hat on the mantle. It feels like forever ago that we were decorating her place for Christmas, and it’s time to get some of that cheer back.
I plop the hat on my head and put one hand on my hip. “Enough of this,” I say. “We’re going to do something fun.”
“Like what?” Violet asks, looking up at me. She still looks worn down, but there’s a ghost of a smile on her lips. That’s a start.
“Christmas movie marathon. We’ll watch some of the classics and some of those awful ones where the girl gives up the job of her dreams to move in with a guy who sells Christmas trees for a living or something.”
Violet’s smile grows. “They’re kind of romantic, in a way.”
“What would be romantic is if the Christmas tree seller guy moved to the big city with the girl and got a real job,” Sawyer says. “Let him make a sacrifice for once.”
“But the Christmas tree farm has been in his family for generations!” Violet says, sounding playfully scandalized. “You can’t ask him to give it up to move to the big city with their expensive coffee and dirty air.”
“Christmas is once a year. He can come back to the farm for the holiday season. What does he even do when it’s summer time? No one’s buying Flag Day trees.”
Violet giggles, and it’s such a beautiful sound after seeing her gripped with panic earlier.
I send Sawyer to make popcorn and gather snacks, and we all pile onto the couch to watch the movies.
Sawyer and Violet continue their good natured debate through all the silly movies, and she even laughs when he starts teasing Rhett about looking like one of the shaggy Christmas tree farm guys.
The mood lightens a lot, and by the time the credits are rolling on the last movie, we look over and Violet is asleep with her head on Sawyer’s shoulder.
It’s not quite late enough for bedtime yet, but Violet’s probably wrung out and emotionally exhausted, and none of us want her to be alone right now.
I pick her up and carry her to bed, getting her settled and tucked in before climbing in with her. Rhett and Sawyer follow suit, all three of us just wanting to be near her.
“Did you take your painkillers?” I ask Rhett in a whisper.
“Yes, Dad,” he answers, and I can hear the eyeroll in his tone.
“Good.”
“We’re going to need a bigger bed if we keep this up,” Sawyer comments.
He’s not wrong about that. It’s a tight squeeze, but none of us are really complaining. If we’re going to make a habit of sleeping with Violet, we’re definitely going to need more space. I’m not even the tallest of my brothers, and my feet are barely on the bed as it is.
It hits me, as I start to drift off, that planning for a bigger bed means I’m starting to see this as a permanent thing, rather than just a lie we spun to fool Violet’s family.
I’m starting to plan for a future with her, which was never in the plan, but somehow feels right.