I choked over the emotion lodged in my throat. “You are perfect.”
Before I fell apart right there, I gathered myself and pushed to standing. “Okay, let’s get that dress off so we can keep it clean for the ceremony.”
“Picture first.” There she was, right back to that.
She actually propped her hands on her hips.
How she went from the sweetest little thing in the world to cheeky in a second flat, I’d never know.
Exasperation blew between my lips. “Fine, sassy pants.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and snapped a picture of her grinning like mad. Nothing but dimples and adorableness.
“Send it.”
I widened my eyes at her in feigned annoyance.
She giggled.
I tapped into my text thread with Emily and attached the picture with my message.
Me: Daisy wanted to say thank you for the shoes and let you know she’s ready to help with the wedding. If you could forward to your mom and Richard to say thank you, that would be great. Don’t worry, we’ll actually make sure her hair is brushed for the ceremony.
I capped it with a winky face.
There. That was painless. The right thing to do. Richard would get his thanks, but it wouldn’t come directly from me, not that I had his number, anyway.
“Now scoot and get that dress off.”
“Okay, Mommy.”
She changed back into her regular clothes and then at the first intonation of my daddy singing in the kitchen, she went racing downstairs to help him with dinner.
Soft sorrow filled my smile when she disappeared, this overwhelming mix of love and grief and dread.
I fought it.
But I could feel myself coming up to a ledge.
A steep cliff that was eroding.
This trembling sense that everything was gonna shift and change.
I followed her out of her room only to pop my head into my mama’s. She was asleep, dragging in deep, uneven breaths. I eased in as silent as I could, pressed a lingering kiss to her cheek, and brushed back the sticky, damp hair clinging to her forehead.
That grief tried to become a stronghold. To fully take me over.
I forced it down and left as quietly as I’d come, heading downstairs. My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Emily: Oh my god, she is sooooooo adorbs! Tell her I can’t wait for her to help. Give her kisses from Auntie Emily. <3 <3
My guts twisted. God, I’d gotten too close too fast. Danger lurking all around. My heart at risk. It’d already been battered so desperately I didn’t know if I could handle it all again. Getting wound up in their lives. I was already achin’ thinking about them leaving again after the wedding.
I was letting pieces of myself go when I knew full well I shouldn’t. Richard was already chiseling out more of the broken pieces that were barely being held together as it was. The problem was, they’d always belonged to him, anyway.
From the second I’d seen him.
The man my downfall.
My dark night sky.
A million glittering stars that I could never reach far enough to touch.
The hell I’d never imagined I’d be sentenced to.
I walked into the kitchen to Daisy standing on her stool next to my daddy, washing the potatoes for dinner.
“You got a message, Daisy.”
Her eyes lit in excitement. “From Mr. Richard?”
Daddy grumbled his disapproval.
“Nope. From Emily. She said the dress is perfect, and she can’t wait for you to help with the wedding.”
“Yay!” she sang.
I kissed her cheek. “I need to head out to the workshop and get a few things in order for deliveries in the mornin’. Shoot me a text when dinner is ready?”
This I addressed to my daddy who was watching me with concern and all his fatherly love. “You work too hard.”
A soft giggle rippled out. “What are you talkin’ about? I took the whole day off. If I keep it up, you’re going to have to find someone more worthy to fill your shoes.”
He tipped up my chin in a show of affection. “You’ve overfilled my shoes. Look at the land.”
He gestured out the kitchen window that overlooked the abundantly colored fields.
Pride pressed at my ribs. “I had a good teacher.”
His smile was adoring. “And I had the best student.”
“The best!” Daisy shouted her agreement.
On light laughter, I kissed them both again before I headed out the back door and down the porch steps to where the world was darkening, the solar lights lining the path flickering to life, illuminating the trail in a glittering haze.
My phone buzzed again, and I clicked into the message.
It was from a number that wasn’t in my contacts. It didn’t take a whole lot to decipher who it was from.
Richard: Beautiful. Like her mother.
I knew he wasn’t referring to my sister, and somehow that hurt, too. That he would assert it. That he was doing this to me.
Me: She is beautiful. Innocent. Vulnerable.
I sent my warning.
My phone buzzed back a second later, more texts following right behind.
Richard: I’d never hurt her. Just like I never wanted to hurt you. Last night was…
Richard: It was magic, Violet. Fucking magic. I almost forgot how perfect we are together, and the only reason I tried to put it out of my mind was for my own sanity, dyin’ from missing you.
Richard: But like you said—I’m insane. Insane with my love for you. My need for you.
My stomach climbed to my chest, that energy flapping with the butterflies that spread their wings in my belly. I tapped out a response while I begged my foolish heart to build up a resistance.
Me: Last night was a mistake.
Richard: No. It might have scared you, but you and I both know it wasn’t a mistake. We never were. It was all the other decisions surrounding it that were wrong.
Tears blurred my eyes.
Me: I need to go.
I couldn’t handle it, the man feeding me lines so sweet they were going to decimate my logic and leave me massacred in the end.
I wasn’t expecting another message, but my phone buzzed
