“I was wondering when you’d notice me,” he said.
“How long have you been there?” Holly demanded.
“I’ve walked by half a dozen times in the last two hours,” he said. “I even made a sandwich. You really had no idea?”
“Would I have yelped if I knew you were here? I thought I was home alone.”
“No chance,” Johnny said, his smile fading. “There’s too much weird shit going on to leave you alone. What if Loch tries to take you out of Silver Spruce territory again?”
“Do you think I’m dumb enough to just follow him out the door if he comes a-knockin’?”
“No, but you might not be able to stop him if he decides to hog-tie you.” Johnny shrugged.
Holly technically hadn’t lied yet, but there was still a bitter taste in her mouth. Though, in fairness, Johnny withheld a ton of information from her, so why shouldn’t she get a chance to do the same?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Johnny asked.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to spit acid at me.”
“I wasn’t looking at you like that.”
“You’ve been looking at me strangely for days.”
“When people lie to me, it tends to change my opinion of them.” She shrugged.
“Again with this? I thought we were getting past it.”
“Your mistake.”
He ran a hand roughly through his wavy hair and sighed. “What do I have to do to make things right?”
“Apologize.”
“I already have!”
“No,” she snapped. “You haven’t. In fact, all you’ve done is try to justify your actions. Maybe if you acknowledged that abusing my trust has consequences, we can move on.”
“My actions were perfectly justifiable!”
Holly shot up from her chair and stormed over to him. “You told me the only thing I had to worry about was a weird family marriage tradition. Can you see how that’s pretty fucking misleading?”
“I wanted to put your mind at ease,” he replied. “How many times do I have to say this?”
“Until it starts making some fucking sense!” Holly shrieked.
“Garret and Keller kept the truth from you just as much as I did. Keller was fucking furious with me for telling you what little I did tell you! Why aren’t you going off on either of them? Why are you attacking me over and over again?”
“Because!” She hesitated. It was a fair question. Why did she only go after Johnny? “Because I felt betrayed.”
“Betrayed?” His brows shot up.
“Yes! I trusted you. I looked to you for help in a way I didn’t look to Garret or Keller. I took you at your word because I believed your word meant something. I put my trust in you and when it didn’t work out the way I thought it would, I felt betrayed.”
“You had to take all three of us at our word. Why am I different?” He fixed her in a heated stare.
As soon as she looked into his eyes, her breath caught in her chest. He was looking at her in that way of his. She could stare at him for a thousand years and never find the words to describe his gaze.
“I—” she stammered. “I don’t know, okay? Maybe it’s because I met you first. I don’t know. I don’t know anything! Everything that’s happened to me since I got here has been scary, confusing, infuriating, or some nightmarish combination of all three! I don’t understand anything that’s happening, let alone my own feelings. Nothing makes sense, and I don’t know how much longer I can roll with this insanity before I lose my fucking mind!”
“Holly,” Johnny murmured, closing the distance between them. “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry for betraying your trust. It was never my intention. I don’t know how to make you believe that I thought I was acting in your best interest.”
Holly opened and closed her mouth several times before finally finding her words. “Loch said you arrived in town shortly before I did,” she said. “Is that the truth?”
“It is.” Johnny nodded. “Can I tell you the whole truth?”
“That’s all I want.” Her voice wavered.
“Come here.” Johnny took her hand and led her to the couch. He sat her down and took a seat beside her. “You might’ve noticed I don’t have the most clear-cut life.”
“I still feel like I don’t know anything about you,” Holly confessed.
“I get restless. I get the urge to do things, and I have a hard time stopping myself. That used to get me into a lot of trouble as a kid. Loch and I used to get into a lot of trouble together. We never did anything that bad. We stole maybe five bucks’ worth of stuff from Griz’s General Store. We spray-painted a tree once, but we felt bad and tried to fix it. We looked scarier than we actually were.”
“What happened between you two?” she asked.
“I realized that all of our antics didn’t make me happy. Pearl offered me advice and a place to stay. I took her up on it and turned my life around. The restlessness within me never quieted. I would take off at a moment’s notice. I would just get in my car and drive. I would always drive in the same direction.”
“Where did you go?”
“At first, I used to head east, then south. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go, but I knew the place I was looking for had Spanish moss and more humidity than anyone would ever want.”
“Louisiana?” Holly asked softly.
“Yeah.” Johnny smiled. “Then, about two years ago, I got the urge to go somewhere else altogether.”
“Where?”
“Straight down into California.”
“I moved to California two years ago.”
“I know.” He smiled softly. “I mean, I didn’t know at first. All of a sudden it was like a
