Chapter 23
twenty-three
. . .
SUTTON
The two weeks between the gala and Christmas passed in a flurry, and none of the busyness included a conversation between me and Lane about what was going on between us.
I was starting to worry I’d pushed him too far with the whole mutual masturbation thing, like I’d teased him too much, offered him a sample of an entire feast he now wanted to consume when it wasn’t on offer.
He would never push me, but there was a thick tension between us, and I had no idea how to go about easing it.
Nothing felt settled. Instead, I remained braced and tensed, as though waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Still, in a rare stroke of good fortune, I worked the twenty-third, giving me both Christmas Eve and Christmas off, and I was looking forward to heading up to Boise to spend some time with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephews.
“Auntie!” my three nephews screamed as I pushed inside the house the afternoon of Christmas Eve, my arms laden with gift bags and wrapped presents for them all.
“Boys, boys!” my sister-in-law, Gretchen, begged, approaching from the kitchen. She had flour on her cheek, an apron covering her front, and a dish towel thrown over her shoulder.
Gretchen was the portrait of “trad wife.” I wouldn’t be surprised to look up the definition in a dictionary and find her photo. She made me feel small and unaccomplished in comparison, but I swallowed my feelings of inadequacy in an attempt to survive the next twenty-four hours.
Thankfully, my brother appeared, and between the three of us, we managed to get all of the gifts settled under the tree. I took off my coat and shoes while Sean went outside to get my bag.
Much later, after dinner and a marathon of the Home Alone movies, the boys were tucked safely in bed and us adults sat around the kitchen table, enjoying a night cap.
I didn’t drink much. After my assault, I hated not being in full control of myself, but I had a soft spot for Gretchen’s homemade eggnog.
Plus, it wasn’t like my sister-in-law was going to drug and take advantage of me. I was safe here.
“Are you okay?” Sean asked abruptly.
Silence descended. My brother share an unreadable look with his wife, and without another word, Gretchen got up and left the room.
“I’m fine,” I said quickly. Too quickly. “Why?”
“You look…heavy.”
I scoffed. “You trying to say I’ve gained weight or something?”
“No, no!” he protested, throwing up his hands, and my face broke into a smile.
“I’m teasing, Sean.”
“I just mean…mentally.” He gestured to his own eyes then tapped his temple. “You look like you’ve got some shit going on up here.”
Ugh. Damn him for knowing me so well.
I hadn’t planned to tell him about the break-in, but suddenly, it all came spilling out of my mouth. The way the fear from that night had triggered me, uncovered old wounds. How moving in with Lane brought up even more shit.
It felt good to unburden myself with all of it. Sean and I had never been particularly close, but I supposed it was never too late to try to fix that.
He listened intently, without judgement or interruptions.
When I finished, Sean said, “Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I didn’t want to worry you or drag you and your family into my drama.”
Sean reached out and captured my hand with his. “Sutton, you are my family, as much as Gretchen and the boys.”
My nose and the backs of my eyes stung as tears threatened to fall, and I blinked rapidly, hoping to quell them.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” I said, grateful my voice didn’t wobble. “But I’m safe with Lane, and I trust him to find out who is responsible for destroying my house.”
“Is there more going on between you two?”
In the wake of my assault, Lane had rarely left my side unless he absolutely had to—and until I pushed him away—so my family knew all about our short-lived relationship.
I’d been caving in on myself, but I remembered feeling even slightly lighter after unburdening myself, of sharing us with someone else.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“But you want there to be.”
With my gaze downcast, I nodded. Sean took my lack of verbal response to mean I didn’t want to discuss it further, though, and when he let the subject drop, I was grateful.
The silence that descended was tense, and I was compelled to break it, so I blurted the thought pressing at the forefront of my mind.
“I haven’t been the best sister.”
I’d spent years taking his lack of interest in my life as an indication that he didn’t care about me, but maybe, the sad truth was I hadn’t let him in.
Hadn’t given him the opportunity to ask, to care, to love me.
While I’d touched on family issues in therapy, the bulk of my time had been devoted to healing from the rape.
I should’ve realized I’d also needed to heal from this—the sense of feeling unloved in my own family.
This conversation was doing wonders for my fragile heart.
“And I haven’t been the best brother,” he admitted. “I’d say we’re even.”
“Love you,” I whispered.
“Love you too, kid,” he said, letting go of my hand to ruffle my hair like he’d done so many times when we were actual children.
A weight I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying was lifted off my shoulders, and when I went to bed that night, I slept better with one less thing plaguing my subconscious.
The following morning, I contentedly sipped my coffee while the boys opened gifts. Because it got dark so early this time of year and my brother knew I hated driving at night, especially in the snow, we had Christmas lunch around one p.m., and I was on the road headed home before four.
Turning on an audiobook of the first in my favorite fantasy series, I allowed my mind to wander on the drive.
I’d never really imagined myself settling into the same domestic lifestyle Sean had found for himself. Not because I didn’t want it, per se. Of course I wanted to find my person, wanted to be a mother, wanted all of those things. But intimacy was so hard for me, both physically and emotionally.
Except with Lane.
With Lane, everything was easy.
I could no longer deny that a large part of my heart and soul yearned for him.
In over fifteen years, I’d really never stopped.
And I knew Lane would take care of me. I knew he’d protect me—mind, body, heart, and soul—with everything he had, with his life if it came down to it.
And if the night of the gala was any indication, he was more than ready to go there with me.
The problem wasn’t Lane.
The problem was me.
I was the thing holding us back from each other.
After the night of the gala, all the hangups I thought I had when it came to relationships and physical intimacy no longer loomed so large. Maybe they were finally melting away.
Lane deserved to be loved wholly and without reservations, and he wanted that with me.
Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to get home and talk to him. To finally sit him down and tell him everything on my mind—the good, the bad, the ugly.
The stretch of road between Boise and Dusk Valley was usually fairly quiet, especially on a holiday like today, when everyone was safely at home, celebrating with their families.
Which was why I found it jarring to flick my eyes up some time later and see a vehicle in my rearview.
Right on my bumper.
As I daydreamed, the sun had sunk lower in the sky, necessitating the use of headlights, and theirs blinded me from making out much about the vehicle. Big, black. Likely an SUV of some sort. There was no way in hell I could see who was driving.
We were on a corner, still about twenty miles outside of the city limits, so I willed my anxiety to simmer. Surely they’d pass me the second we hit the next straight stretch.
Only…they didn’t. Even after I slowed down in an attempt to urge them around me, they stayed right on my tail.
Unease prickled my skin, raising goosebumps in its wake.
With a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel, I returned to my normal cruising speed and willed them to make a move. To go around me, to back off, to drive me off the road—anything so long as they got it over with.
None of those things happened. Only once the WELCOME TO DUSK VALLEY sign appeared and I officially crossed into city limits did they pull over and stop, growing smaller in the distance as I proceeded through town.
While I had half a mind to turn around, drive up to them, and demand to know what the fuck they thought they were doing, I was far too shaken for a confrontation.
And far too shaken to go home.
Lane. I needed Lane.
Pressing the Bluetooth button on my steering wheel, I directed Siri to call him.