The Rake (Boston Belles #4)(101)

Well, Mom, I did a lot to try and distract myself from my reality at that age.

But then, I was a clubber six months ago too. I’d distracted myself for fourteen years before Devon stepped into my life and forced me to stay still and take a good look at what my life had become.

I pushed another watermelon chunk between my lips, watching her black-eyed Susans across the pool, their stems like necks craning to look up at the sun, the petals glinting under the sun’s rays.

“Come with me to the farmer’s market. You’ll meet all my new bridge friends,” Mom suggested.

“Holy shit, Mom, you’re really selling this to me,” I deadpanned, hands tucked under my butt.

“Come on, Belly-Belle. I can see something’s on your mind.”

“You can?” I frowned at my toes. “How?”

“A mother can always tell.”

Was I going to know when my baby felt something once they were born without any telltale signs? Would my gut scream at me that something was wrong? Could I pick up on the vibes, like fumes from fire, before the earth beneath her feet scorched?

“Yes,” my mother said as if reading my mind. She rested her hand on my back. I wanted to fold into a fetal position and cry in her lap. The last few months caught up with me all at once, and now I was exhausted.

More than I was afraid of those who were after me, and more than I was angry at myself for taking Louisa’s deal, I missed Devon.

Missed him so much I couldn’t bring myself to turn on my phone for the past couple days and check if I had any messages from him.

I missed his gruff, elegant laugh and the way his dark blond eyebrows moved animatedly when he talked.

I missed his kisses and the crinkles around his eyes when he grinned mischievously and the way he called the guy who worked at the convenience store under his apartment the newsagent, like he was a BBC anchor and not a dudebro who sold overpriced milk and cigarettes.

In short, I missed him.

Too much to trust myself to go back to Boston.

Too much to breathe.

Mom reached and gathered me to her chest, dropping a kiss on my head. “Yes, you will know when something is eating at your child, and I hope they will tell you what it is that’s eating them so maybe you can help. As it happens, I raised two fiercely independent girls. You, more than your sister. You were always such a spitfire. You helped Persephone before I could get to her—with school, with homework, with her social life. You’ve already been a parent in some ways. You’re going to be a wonderful mother, Belly-Belle, and you are going to realize the most depressing secret of all.”

“Hmm?” I asked, nuzzling into her shirt.

“You’re only as happy as your least happy child.”

She dropped another kiss on my head.

“Confide in me, Belle.”

“I can handle it, Mom.”

She pulled away from me, holding my shoulders, her eyes boring into mine.

“Then do, honey. Don’t run from whatever it is. Face it head-on. Because whatever happens, it’s not just you who you have to think about now.”

I pressed my hand against my stomach.

Baby Whitehall kicked in response.

I got you, girl.




Twenty minutes after my mother went to the farmer’s market to meet with her bridge friends (my youth shriveled into itself just thinking about it), I picked up the empty watermelon bowl and pushed the screen door open, slipping back inside. The house was blistering hot since the air conditioner died a few days before and had yet to be repaired. There was a gaping, sewer-sized hole at the back of the house, waiting to be fixed.

The place felt strange to me still. Even though it was not chronologically new, it seemed that way. It had yet to shape itself around its occupants and was bare of memories, nostalgia, and those home scents that transported you back to your childhood.

I rinsed the bowl, thinking about what Mom had said. Dealing with my problems.

The last couple days brought me clarity.

I didn’t want a million dollars. I wanted Devon.

And I was tired of running away from whoever was after me. I needed Devon to help me with that.

Yes, I finally realized I needed help. I couldn’t do this on my own. And strangely enough, it didn’t feel too terrible admitting that to myself. Maybe I was growing up from the girl Mr. Locken had left to bleed out all those years ago.

The front door opened and shut, and the house filled with my dad’s whistles.

John Penrose could whistle any song that came out between 1967 and 2000 from start to finish. He was good at it too. When Persy and I were young, we’d play name that tune. Sometimes I let her win. But not often.

“Honeys, I’m home!”

He appeared in the kitchen, tall and broad and still kind of handsome—in a more wrinkled less defined Harrison Ford kind of way. He dropped canvas bags full of lemons on the counter next to me, grinning at me ear to ear.

“Hello, sunshine.”

He pressed a kiss to my forehead, hiked his belt up what was beginning to look like a dad bod more than a father figure belly, and swung the fridge door open, on the hunt for his evening beer. “Where’s your momma?”

“Out.” I leaned against the counter, drying my hands with a towel. I didn’t tell him where she went. To this day, I withheld information about my mother from my father, trying to make her appear more mysterious and alluring. There was little point to this exercise. She was an open book to him—always honest, straightforward, and available.