The Line (Witching Savannah, #1)(53)

“Adam was never comfortable with being gay.” Oliver shifted gears again without warning. “He still isn’t, but it was much worse back then. He wanted to go into the military and then become a cop after his service was completed. Being gay didn’t fit into his plans at all. But then he made the mistake of falling in love with me, and I loved him right back.”

“Don’t be angry,” I had to say. “I don’t want to hurt you by saying this, but maybe you loved him so much that you—”

“That I ‘bent’ him?” Oliver’s laugh was bitter. “No, Gingersnap, Adam was plenty bent long before I laid eyes on him. Don’t let his butchness fool you. It’s the real knuckle draggers who can’t wait to get on their knees.” I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that. Oliver looked at me and tossed another bit of wood into the fire. “To make a long story short, I loved Adam. As a matter of fact he’s the only man I have ever loved, although now I am damned if I know why.” He stopped poking the fire and turned to meet my gaze. “Truth is, I will go to my grave loving him. Hell, I came pretty close to doing that last night.” The right side of his mouth edged up in an attempted smile, but it fell flat. “And now,” he continued, “I have to live the rest of my life seeing you look at me the same way he does.”

It was exactly what Jilo had hoped for when she’d mentioned Grace to me. “Tell me what happened,” I said, hoping against hope that I would find some extenuating circumstance that would allow me to pardon Oliver.

“You already know. Grace wasn’t lying,” he said.

“But you tell me. You tell me anyway.”

He moved away from the barrel and sat down next to me. He leaned back on his elbows as sweat beaded up and slid down his bare chest. “Grace said Adam and I were sick. Men weren’t supposed to be doing the things we did. Men shouldn’t love each other. She wanted Adam, and she figured she could fix whatever was broken in him.”

“Did she have Mother Jilo charm him?” I asked.

“There was no need. Adam and I had been together for over a year. He had grown a little bored with me by then anyway, I guess. He liked Grace’s attention; he was flattered by it. But mostly he believed the same things she believed. That there was something wrong with us. And when she promised to cure him, he went for it like the fire in that barrel is going after the wood. Problem is, it didn’t work.” He looked up at the blue sky and watched a large cumulus cloud move closer. “He came back after a few months, going on about how much he loved me, how much he missed me. He swore to me, swore to me, that we would be together somehow. And then a few days later he up and disappeared.

“I went to his house, but his mother told me to go away. Grace was pregnant, and she and Adam were going to get married. Her son didn’t have time for any more of our ‘little games.’ He was grown up, and he was going to be a man now. It was time for me to do the same. She slammed the door in my face, and then I saw the curtain in Adam’s window move. I knew he was there. I should have been angry. I should have walked away, but I was…”

“Heartbroken,” I said when he wasn’t able to find the word.

“No, darker than that. I was heartbroken, but my conscience was broken too. I sat down on their steps, and the darkness grew inside of me. I couldn’t move, and I felt like I was growing heavier and denser with each breath. After a few minutes, Adam’s grandfather Henry came out and sat next to me.” Oliver swiveled to look at me again. “Henry was the most decent man who ever walked this earth. He put his arm around me and told me that I needed to be tougher for my own good, but that I was going to get through it. And then he pulled me close and told me that his grandson was a fool not to love me like I deserved to be loved.”

“I met Henry once; he’s a good guy,” I said.

“But Henry died right after you were born.” Oliver started to shake his head, but then he sighed. “Savannah.”

It hadn’t occurred to me that Henry was a spirit. He had held onto me, driven a car for me. Jilo must have lent some mojo to his apparition to make it capable of the physical feats he had performed. I should have been shocked, but it was getting hard to surprise me anymore. “Savannah,” I responded.

“Things would probably have worked out,” Oliver continued. “Sure, Adam would have married Grace, but I doubt it would have lasted. Probably in a year or two, he would have decided to move on from Grace as easily as he had moved on from me, proud of the fact that at least once, he’d managed to get his dick hard enough for a girl to plant a baby in her.” Anger simmered very close to the surface. “That kid would have been his cover for life.”

“Is that why—” I started to ask.

“No.” Oliver stopped me. “Winning wasn’t good enough for Grace. She had to come here to rub my nose in it. We fought, and I told her that the only reason Adam was marrying her was because she was knocked up. She said that Adam wanted a normal life, not a perverted one. I snapped and told her that if she was so sure of that, she should abort the baby and see if Adam was still interested in a wedding. I compelled her to have that abortion.”

“You were angry.” I found myself rationalizing for him. “They were just words.”

“So it wasn’t premeditated. It was still murder. I knew what I was doing. I didn’t care. Maybe the baby would have been more real to me if she had been showing. Maybe…” He paused. He’d obviously traveled this road many times. “She wasn’t a woman who decided what was right for her own body, Mercy. I decided for her, and there is no way to redeem what I did.”