24. Ember #3
The lanky cop sprang from the crowd, and his partner wasn’t far behind. They tackled a screaming Ivan to the ground and wrestled the bottle out of his hands. Handcuffs flashed, and a second later, they were snapped around the antiques dealer’s wrists.
“Fucking cops,” Cash muttered. “Now we won’t get anywhere near him. Let’s get out of here.” He gave me a little salute, then he and his lieutenants walked away.
Ivan finally stopped thrashing as the cops hauled him to his feet.
I clung to Jack, letting the comfort of his arms soothe my fear. I closed my eyes and inhaled his scent. He smelled like home.
Jack loosened his grip on me, and we watched them haul the old man off. When I looked up at my husband’s face, it was still a hard, angry mask. He didn’t meet my gaze. Suddenly the comfort I’d felt a second ago gave way to dread. “Jack?” I asked, but he still didn’t look at me.
Instead, he stared at his daughter. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Ember, the police will need to interview you, but that can wait. I need to get the two of you home.” He was still shaking, but his face was cold and flat.
I nodded, letting him lead me toward the bakery door. He took Darby’s hand and towed the two of us out the front of the shop, under the watchful gaze of half the townspeople. Jack didn’t say a word. He didn’t look at me at all.
I cleared my throat. “My car is over there—”
“I’m driving you both home,” Jack said, voice harsh. He was riding the knife’s edge of panic. So close to losing it. I nodded, following him to his company SUV.
By the time we pulled up outside the house, his demeanor had softened a bit. He turned off the engine and shifted in his seat to look at Darby in the back. “I’m sorry for this morning. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
She straightened. “Does that mean I can go to Vikki’s birthday party?”
“No.”
Darby threw herself backward in her seat with a dramatic sigh. Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. I sat there, saying nothing. The tension in the vehicle was so thick it hurt to breathe.
And then Darby’s gaze hardened and she met her father’s eyes again. “Ember says I don’t have to play piano.”
I froze. Uh-oh.
Jack’s gaze went frigid. The anger came back with full force. He stared at his daughter, then turned to me. It was the first time he’d looked at me since I got away from Ivan. Ice jetted down my spine. I didn’t recognize him at all. His voice was very low as he asked, “Is that right?”
It took all my self-control not to shiver at the sound of his voice.
This was not the Jack I knew. “I just told her that she’s old enough to make some choices for herself,” I said, trying to keep my voice level.
The force of Jack’s stare was pulverizing.
Holding his gaze was the hardest thing I’d ever done, and I’d just been held at broken bottlepoint by a deranged old man.
“Darby, go inside,” Jack said, his eyes still on me.
“I don’t want to.”
“Darby.” His voice was a warning.
Darby groaned, unclipped her seatbelt, and slammed the door as she got out. She stomped toward the kitchen door and went into the house.
Jack watched her before sliding his gaze back to me. His blue eyes were the color of dense snow at the bottom of a massive glacier. Alarm made the base of my spine tingle.
Something had changed between us. I’d thought he’d been worried about me in the alleyway, but now I wondered if he’d simply been angry. I’d made his life more complicated. I’d been in the way. A problem he’d had to fix. A burden. As usual.
With one arm propped on the steering wheel so he could face me fully, he spoke. “Whether or not Darby plays piano,” he said quietly, “is not your call to make.”
He was so angry that it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I hated this. It struck something deep in my gut, an old fear I’d never quite gotten over.
But I’d been that little girl, feeling crushed by the weight of her father’s will.
She deserved someone to stand up for her.
I’d never had that, and I wouldn’t let Darby experience that kind of isolation.
I swallowed and looked him in those cold blue eyes as I said, “She’s getting older, Jack. Her opinion matters.”
“Not with this.” He was an immovable wall. No give. No bend. Nothing.
I exhaled, as much out of confusion as an effort to simply release some of the pressure build-up inside me. I shook my head. “What the hell is the deal with piano, Jack?” I asked, feeling lost. “What’s the big deal?”
Jack’s jaw went hard. But he didn’t shout.
He didn’t even move. His voice was like ice forming over the surface of a still lake.
“The deal with piano is that her mother”—he emphasized the word as if to remind me that I was not her—“always dreamed of teaching Darby the piano. Tanya was a talented pianist, and it was one of the only things she talked about doing with Darby. She had dreams of playing duets, of learning Christmas carols together, of filling the house with music. I’m tone deaf as hell, but I promised myself I would make that happen to honor her memory.
Darby would play the piano.” His jaw clenched as he stared at me.
“You don’t get to walk into our lives and take that away. ”
Oh. Oh.
The reality of the situation was suddenly crystal clear to me.
Jack couldn’t have made it any more obvious.
He still loved his late wife with all his heart.
Not only was I a nobody in his eyes, but I’d overstepped.
I’d misread this entire situation. I’d thought my relationship with both Jack and Darby meant more than it actually did. Now, Jack was putting me in my place.
Jack twisted the knife by adding, “Darby is not your daughter. You’re not her parent. Now I need to clean up the mess you made by sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
I flinched like I’d been slapped. I tried to tell myself that Jack was under a lot of strain.
This wasn’t the big-hearted, kind man I’d come to love.
But the words repeated on a loop in my head, and I heard them in my father’s voice.
Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.
Where it doesn’t belong. Where you don’t belong. You don’t belong.
I didn’t belong here. I was in the way. A burden. Just like I’d always been, to everyone. Except this time was worse, because I’d actually believed I had a future here. I thought we would tear up that stupid contract I’d brought and skip off into the sunset, the three of us one happy family.
I’d thought I had a home.
My chest felt like it had been pummeled with a brick. My face prickled all over. Heat gripped the back of my throat. I was so close to losing it. Jack looked at me, his expression flat. Then he slid out of the car and followed Darby inside.
I remembered to breathe.
Slowly, mechanically, I got out of the car.
I desperately wished I’d refused to ride with him and Darby, because I wanted to get in my car and run away.
I was so embarrassed. So fucking mortified and heartbroken that the man I’d fallen in love with didn’t care about me at all.
It had all been…what? A distraction? Fun?
Why had he said all those things to me? Why had he made me think he cared?
But he’d only said those things during sex. He’d never wanted to stop sneaking around. He’d never actually told me he wanted to stay. He’d never talked about the future at all. He’d never mentioned Darby or what we would tell her about us.
Because there was no “us.”
I was the one who’d made up fantasies in my mind. I’d known who he was from the start, and I’d still fallen for it.
Stupid. So fucking stupid.
Even if my car were here and I were able to get in and take off, I wasn’t sure it was safe for me to drive when I felt like I’d taken a baseball bat to the side of the head.