Twisted Perfection (Rosemary Beach #5)(49)

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ve got you. You come back to me okay,” I soothed her as I walked back out to the privacy of my truck with her. When I turned to push the door open with my back I saw Jimmy standing there watching us.

“You tell no one about this,” I warned.

He only nodded before I turned and took her to the truck. I sat in the passenger seat and kept her tucked up against my chest.

“Come back to me, baby. No one’s going to hurt you. I have you,” I reassured her, holding her close to my chest. “I shouldn’t have left you and I’m sorry. But I’m here now. You’re okay.”

Her wide vacant eyes blinked slowly and then the recognition in them as she focused on me was one of relief. Her arms wrapped around my neck and she held on tightly.

“I’m sorry. I did it again. I’m so sorry. I’ll leave. I promise.” Her garbled words made no sense until she said she would leave. I tightened my hold on her.

“You won’t go anywhere or I’ll chase your ass down. I’m the one who is sorry. I wasn’t here when you needed me. I should have been here. Tell me what happened. I won’t leave you again. I swear it.”

She sniffled and pressed her face against my neck. “This will happen again. It will always happen. I can’t make it stop. I’ve tried but I can’t. I shouldn’t be working here. It’s too nice of a place for a crazy person.”

“Don’t,” I snapped, pulling her back to look at my face. I wanted her to see me when I said this. She needed to believe me. “You’re not crazy. You’re beautiful and fun. You’re selfless and big-hearted. You’re a hard worker and you don’t expect anything from anyone but You. Are. Not. Crazy.” I grabbed her face in my hands. “I don’t want to ever, and I mean EVER, hear you call yourself that again. Do you understand me? You call yourself any of those things I said but never crazy.” I pulled her back into my arms and held her. I didn’t trust myself to say anything else at the moment. My emotions were running too close to the surface.

“There was this boy. He was a couple years younger than me,” she paused and took a deep breath. “He said he wanted to lock me up in a room and do things to me. It,” she stopped and I heard her swallow hard. “It wasn’t that I was scared really. It was when he threatened to lock me up in a room. My cr… my fears took over. The panic set in.”

She was scared of being locked up. Why? Had someone done that to her? I brushed the hair away from her face and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“Let’s go home. Then, will you tell me more? Help me understand so I can help you? Please?”

She didn’t answer right away but finally she nodded. “If you want me to,” she replied.





Della




Woods would have carried me inside if I would have let him. He was hovering over me so carefully that if I didn’t love him I’d be annoyed. He was worried about me and he deserved to understand some of this. Maybe not all of it but he needed to know something.

“I had an older brother once. I’ve only seen pictures of him and my father. I don’t remember them. I was too young when it all happened.” I wasn’t sure telling him this wasn’t going to send me into another tailspin but I had to try. He sat down beside me and put his arm around my back and pulled me against his chest. It was like he knew I needed him for this. His hand threaded with mine and he squeezed it. I was going to be okay. He was here with me.

“One day they went to run errands. I was a newborn and my mother was nursing me. We didn’t go with them. They never returned. They were shot along with several other people in a local grocery store. A guy had gotten angry or something and shot ten people before he was shot and killed himself. My dad and brother had been standing in the checkout line when he walked in. They were the first two killed.” That was a story I had heard many times from my mother as she explained the dangers if we went outside. I knew it well. I burrowed back into Woods’ arms and kept my mind from losing focus and getting lost in my memories.

“I’ve got you. I’m right here,” he assured me. His other hand found mine and he held it too.

“My mother’s mother had been mentally ill. I never met her. She was in a special home. We had no other family. My father had grown up in foster homes. Neither of them had siblings. My grandmother lost touch with reality shortly after my mother’s birth. Her father hadn’t stuck around to raise her for long. Mom was raised by her father’s mother who died when she was sixteen. She and my father met in a foster home when they were seventeen. From the pictures we had I could see a healthy woman and good mother. My brother seemed to love her. She seemed happy. But I never knew that woman. We moved after my dad and brother were killed. She moved us from a small town in Nebraska to an even smaller one in Georgia. My earliest memories were in that house in Macon. My mother’s wild eyes and screaming fits were all I knew of life. She could be so sweet at times but other times she was frightening. She talked to my brother a lot. I didn’t understand for years who she was talking to. It was just the two of us. But she saw him, I think.”

I closed my eyes against the memory of my mother speaking to my dead brother as if he were there. The plate of food she would fix him with his favorite snacks left uneaten and moldy on the table. Once it had gotten so rotten I’d been unable to go into the kitchen without getting nauseated. She would finally throw it away and fix him some more.