Off Limits(36)

I couldn't help it. Long repressed tears spilled down my cheeks as I looked at the anguished face of my father. "Daddy, I'm sorry."

He shook his head and took out his keys. "Most days, that'd have been enough, Abby. But this . . . go to your room. Tomorrow, I'll take you to school for your tests. And I'll pick you up."

"Daddy, I’m grown. I can go to school on my own," I protested, and he looked back at me. “Besides, my car is parked at The Nook.”

"Until I know I can trust you again, I don't think so. Now head to your room. You have tests tomorrow. I'll call the restaurant and make sure that your car is taken care of."

I followed his instructions, closing the door to my room behind me. Falling onto my bed, I let the rest of my tears out into my pillow. I wasn't sure if they were tears of rage, tears of sadness, tears of frustration, or what they were. I just knew they had to get out. I think it was mostly of anger, anger that I was being treated like a child. Either way, the tears were poisoning my body, my heart pounding in my chest and my eyes swelling to the point I could barely see, and I had to get them out.

I was just starting to gain control of myself when there was a knock on my bedroom door and Brittany came in. "Patrick has asked me to tell you that you’re to have dinner in your room tonight, and that if you need anything, I’ll be the person you should speak to," she said quietly, in a tone totally unlike her. It wasn't cold and it wasn't distant, like I'd expected. Instead, she sounded hollow. "He also asked me to collect your cellphone. He'd have me collect your laptop as well, except he thinks that you might need it for your studying."

"Brittany . . .” I said, then sighed and dropped my head. Reaching over, I grabbed my backpack and pulled out my smartphone, holding it out to her. "It isn't right."

For the first time I could think of, I saw frustration in Brittany's face while she took the phone from me and held it while she crossed her arms. I'd seen her piqued plenty of times, usually due to something I did, but I'd never seen this level of pure frustration before. She looked up to the ceiling and took a deep breath, then spoke. "You know, both of you are wrong in this instance. Maybe it’s not my place to say it—but it's true."

"What do you mean?" I asked, shocked. I'd rarely heard Brittany talk in this way before, and I had certainly never heard her say something negative about Daddy. If she had ever criticized him, she must have done it just between the two of them.

"I mean, Abby, that Patrick is wrong in the way that he’s handling this, while you were wrong to have met with that man in the first place. What do you even know about him?"

"A lot," I said, the fire building in my temper. I may not have inherited Daddy's size or physical strength, but I did inherit his stubbornness, even as much as I tried to control it. Sometimes that comes out as anger, whether I want it to or not. "He's not as bad as Daddy thinks he is. He's actually a good man, Brittany."

"That doesn't really matter now, does it?" Brittany asked. "You lied, Abby. Maybe not explicitly, but you lied by omission. Patrick and I both thought that your stress over the past month has been because of your upcoming finals and graduation. Now we find out that it was over some . . . some boy!"

"He's not a boy,” I said simply. “If you saw him, you’d never say that again."

"You think that makes it sound any better?" Brittany asked. She held up her hand, silencing me. "Whatever the case may be, I suspect this has roots going all the way back to that morning you came home after staying out all night. I'm not going to give voice to my suspicions as to what happened that night, although I'm sure Patrick is thinking about the same thing."

I couldn't say anything but just dropped my head, unable to answer. Brittany sighed, then bonked her head against my door, a sound so natural and unlike her that I couldn't help it, smiling for an instant before disappearing into my other feelings. "That doesn't mean that Patrick has been blameless in his actions either, Abby. There was no reason for him to blow up at you like that, especially not in a public place. God knows what is going to happen to his account that he stormed out of."

I raised my head, surprised. "What are you talking about?"

Brittany huffed through her lips, pondering me for a second before answering. "Lake Automotive is looking at expanding, adding a heavy equipment dealership to their lineup. Patrick was meeting with Hank Lake to discuss the possibility of Rawlings Construction building it for them. As Hank is also a rather working-class man, they decided that a casual meeting over beers and some burgers was better than business suits and lawyers, at least at first."

It answered a question I'd had, and I let my breath escape in a whoosh. "So Daddy wasn't spying on me or following me."

Brittany chuckled darkly and shook her head. "No, he wasn't. You got caught by pure bad luck, Abby. Basically, at least according to what Patrick said to me, he looked around stretching, only to see you, your friend, and that man talking. He said something, and Hank looked up and remarked that it was . . . what's his name again?"

"Dane Bell," I answered hollowly.

Brittany clicked her fingers, nodding. "That's right. Dane Bell. In any case, you know your father. He never forgets something like that, and when he made the connection, he lost his temper."