“Please tell me what’s going on…”

“What are you doing with me?” Ransom asked, finally giving me a look. “Huh, Aly? What the hell do you want with me?”

I frowned, a little stricken but didn’t hesitate. “Everything.”

The play of emotions on his face told me so much. That instantaneous flash of pleasure at my honest answer, and then the fear, the disappointment took over. Like he thought anything he wanted, anything I wanted with him was hopeless. “That’s not…” He worked his jaw tight, the tension in his muscles moving over his face. Behind me, I felt Keira come up behind me, her fingers grasping my arm but Ransom didn’t bother to look at her. He kept his voice sharp and his words cruel. “I destroy every fucking thing I touch. You might as well get that into your head right now.” Then, he was gone without a backward glance at me or his mother, before his father could catch up with us.

Kona approached, took a few steps onto the sidewalk to follow Ransom before he stopped and turned to stare back at Keira. “Wildcat, let’s go.”

“Aly…” she started, holding my arm tighter, but I wouldn’t go with them to chase after Ransom. If he refused to take what I offered, then I wouldn’t chase after him. I did have some pride. But it hurt so damned bad.

“No, go after him,” I told Keira, nodding when Kona held out his hand to her. She hesitated and then the big man narrowed his eyes, looking at me like he expected me to follow them. “No, it’s fine, Kona. Go ahead.” But Kona was, at the very least, a protector. I could tell by his frown and that concerned dip of his eyebrows that he didn’t like leaving me here. He didn’t need to worry. I was around my folk and I’d always looked after myself even when they didn’t.

“Ransom…doesn’t want me with you all right now and you can’t leave Keira. Go. I’ll be okay.” Kona’s mouth tightened but I shook my head. “Kona, I grew up here. I know people. I’ll get back to Metairie tonight, don’t worry.”

Finally, the man’s mouth relaxed a little. “I don’t like this. You call when you get back, Aly, you hear me?”

“Yeah,” I said, touched that he was worried about me, that he spoke to me like I was their daughter and not just the sitter. “I hear you.”

“Baby, come on,” he told Keira. “Let’s go get him.”

Keira kissed my cheek, brushing off her husband’s hand on her shoulder. “He didn’t mean it, sweetie. He’s a little…lost.”

I nodded, but needed to satisfy my curiosity before they left. “Before you go, tell me. Who was that?” I asked Keira, glancing back toward the crowd where the angry man had disappeared.

She sighed, her breath moving the hair off my shoulder. “Patrick Warren. Emily’s father.”

22

Time alone, that’s what I needed. Time to sulk without distraction.

I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit how much I loved Ransom. He’d rescued me. He kept me under some sort of spell that made up the past year and a half of my life. I wanted him unlike I wanted anything else in my life. But I couldn’t be who I wanted to be, couldn’t completely dispel the predictions my father had made about me being stupid and pointless, if I allowed Ransom to dictate who that person would be.

As much as I loved Ransom, I had to love myself just a little bit more.

Me zanmi, it was so damn hard.

Still, I didn’t need Ransom making attempts to barge into my place. Not as exhausted as the day had made me so I screwed that flippin’ laundry access door shut. It took twelve screws and a few minutes to figure out how to work the drill Leann kept in her office, but now I could keep Ransom out of my place.

For tonight.

Maybe forever.

“I’m home,” I’d told Keira when I called to let them know I’d finally made it back from Tremé—Millie’s granddaughter had taken me to the bus station and twenty minutes later I was back in Metairie.

“Good, sweetie. You lock your doors, now.” She sounded tired, and the night, maybe, the worry over Ransom, had her voice cracking when she spoke. “I wish you would have come home with us.”

“Don’t worry, Mama,” I teased, hoping the affection in my voice wasn’t obvious. “I can take care of myself.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“Maybe,” I said, laughing. Keira never minced words. Then she yawned, and I laughed despite myself. “Go get some sleep.”

“You don’t wanna know what happened with Ransom?”

Keira was fierce, she didn’t sugarcoat a damn thing, and she could be a little pushy. But I knew it was because she cared and that she thought I was what Ransom needed. Still, I didn’t want Keira or Kona in my business. “Keira, if he wants me to know, he’ll tell me.”

“Don’t give up on him, Aly.” She took a breath as though it was more than the day or her pregnancy making her exhausted. “Ransom was born old. And he kept getting older. I guess I depended on him more than I should have and with everything he’s been through, all that damn struggle, he sees the world a lot differently than most kids his age.” Another breath and Keira’s voice went soft. “You can relate, I know. Please just remember that you matter a lot to him.” She paused. “You matter a lot to all of us. We love you.”

When I’d come back to the lake house after Ransom and I got all the fighting out of our systems, I’d seen the quick relief on Keira’s face. Her world had changed so quickly in three short years. She’d gone from being a single parent for sixteen years, to marrying her college sweetheart, to having another baby and she’d admitted to me that it had taken her way out of her comfort zone. “Sometimes I can’t keep up. You help with that.”

In her voice just then, I heard the worry that that Ransom’s dismissal would have me running out on them again. But I wouldn’t do that to her. Not just because he was retreating to the past again—I couldn’t abandon them again.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good,” she said through an exhale

“But your son pisses me off.”

That laugh was relieved and totally unsurprised. “Oh, honey, he pisses off the world. You’re in it.”

“Not tonight, I’m not. Tonight I’m on planet sleep.” I was already making sweet eyes at my bed. The day had taken its toll.

“Come early tomorrow, okay sweetie?”

“I can’t,” I reminded Keira. December loomed and with it came the recital. Leann was gearing up for some military-level rehearsals. “We’ve got to rehearse, remember? Kona’s doing remote office hours tomorrow.”

“Damn, that’s right. Okay. Well, I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

I hung up with an offer to bring her beignets on Wednesday morning and was just crawling into my bed when I heard the soft tap on the door outside.

That man was stupidly stubborn.

I didn’t run to that door, wasn’t willing to fling it open and let Ransom make his apologies. Some other day, maybe, but I was just too damn tired for that.

“Aly?” he asked, voice low and a louder knock sounded against the door.

For a moment, I listened, waiting to see if his voice would get louder, if he would put up some sort of fight, demand I let him in. Ransom had a temper, but he wasn’t the pounding-on-the-door, aggressive asshole type. Not that I had seen.

He knocked again and I swore I heard his sigh from across the room. “I know you’re in there.”

One tiny thump, as though he rested his head against the door and then he went quiet. Locking up the access panel had been pointless. He wouldn’t try to get in. Not tonight, not when he was the one who had pushed me away. Not when it was me that got the brunt of his endless punishment.