Anything for Her(66)

How was she supposed to know?

This was her mother, she reminded herself. Her one certainty. The only person whose love she knew was unshakable. That much was true, even if a whole lot else she’d always believed wasn’t.

Maybe she hadn’t explained herself very well.

“Mom, you met Nolan. Does he seem like someone who’d be untrustworthy?”

“That’s not the point. It’s not that he’d deliberately set out to give away what you told him. But you know how easily it could happen. He lives with a teenager. Sean could overhear a few words and tell his friends. Or put it up on Facebook. Or one of them might. The world isn’t as small as it used to be.”

That was true, of course. And I already told Sean something I shouldn’t.

A something that wasn’t very important, because it was about Laura Nelson, not Chloe Marr. And, although the U.S. Marshals had worried that someone might be close to uncovering their identity, that hadn’t really happened. Obviously, Dad and Jason were fine. They still lived openly in Tulsa, and no one had stuck a gun to Dad’s head and demanded to know where his wife had gone. Hastily relocating Mom and Allie might not have been necessary at all.

Mom, she thought, feeling sick, had almost seemed excited again. As if the fact that she might be in danger made her feel important.

Horrified at herself, Allie wanted to take back her speculation. She knew her mother better than that! She’d been devastated when Jason decided to stay behind, too. She had held Allie and cried. “What would I ever do without you?” she’d whispered.

What if I said now, “Mom, do you ever think maybe you’re not that important? Do you really think anybody still searches the internet for clues to where you are? After fifteen years?”

But she knew she couldn’t say any of that.

“Mom, I think this is something I need to do,” she said instead, voice quivering.

Her mother’s face spasmed. “And I’m begging you not to. I think I deserve enough of your loyalty to ask that much.”

Allie felt herself go numb inside. However much her foundations had shifted, she did love her mother. The realization that she couldn’t choose Nolan over Mom would leave her desolate if she let it.

She stood up. “All right. You win. I’ll try—” Her throat closed up. She absolutely could not finish. Could not say, I’ll try to believe he and I can be happy with me lying to him constantly. Could not say, I’ll try to believe I can be a complete person despite the fact that the first seventeen years of my life have been severed from me.

Could not say, I’ll try to keep loving you as much as I always have, even though I think you just manipulated me and guilted me and never really tried to understand how I feel.

“I need to go home.” She started for the door, only then remembering she’d set down her purse in the kitchen and diverted that way. “I’m sorry.”

“I wish you’d stay for dinner.” Sounding unhappy, Mom followed her. “I know you’re not eating enough. And I can tell you don’t understand.”

“I think you’re wrong.” Thank God, there was her purse. Allie grabbed it and kept going. “But I do understand why you’re scared, Mom, and I guess I have to respect that. And I really, really don’t want to talk any more about it tonight, okay?” She fumbled to get the front door open.

“All right. But...could we have lunch one day this week?”

Allie risked a look back and saw only her mother. Her best friend.

“Of course we can,” she said, gently even though she felt...not much at all.

Their good-nights weren’t all that different from usual. Driving home, Allie tried to convince herself that nothing really had changed, and that her mother was right. Nolan could love her without ever knowing her secrets.

* * *

SOMEHOW SHE WASN’T at all surprised when the bell above the door tinkled at precisely 1:15 the next afternoon and, when she turned from where she’d been replacing a bolt of fabric on the rack, she saw that it was Nolan who had walked into her otherwise empty store, a couple of bags of food in his hands.

“You finished your job?” she asked.

“Yeah. I missed you yesterday.”

“I missed you, too.” Her voice sounded weird. A little scratchy.

He didn’t say anything for a minute, but he looked into her eyes with unnerving intensity. “Did you?” he said finally.