The Reluctant Heiress: A Novella(39)

Perhaps some part of us hopes that like ink dropped in a pool of water, fear dilutes as it gains surface area. But it doesn’t. It retains potency, only multiplying. A virus.

A cancer.

I understand a little better, now, the weight of what my father carried for my mother. How it must have torn him apart to keep the truth from us for six months. Then how, throughout her long treatment, his drive to protect his children had outweighed his need for unburdening. And how eventually he broke, sharing his pain with someone else.

Can I blame him that the person wasn’t my mother? God, I want to. I want to hate him. The teenaged-me would have hated him for it. The confused, rock-bottom me of just months ago did hate him. Or at least I thought I did.

Now? I can blame my father all I want for betraying my mother, but the fact remains that I don’t know the whole story. My mother’s thoughts. My father’s guilt. Abigail’s culpability.

Life’s answers are often simple but rarely easy.



The footsteps have been shadowing me for a while. At first I pegged them as belonging to Deacon. Fierce, protective Deacon, whose response to my news was instant fury on my behalf. Though my eldest brother and I have never been as close as Alex, Charles, and me, I don’t doubt if cancer was a person, Deacon would pummel it to death without blinking.

But the person following me isn’t Deacon. He wouldn’t bother with subterfuge, but yell and chastise and drag me back into the warm house. Likewise, Charles or my father wouldn’t hesitate to make themselves known, albeit in a more subdued way.

I know who it is. Who it has to be. No one else would follow me into the woods at night. The knowledge elicits equal excitement and apprehension. I want to see him, hear him, touch him… and I’m terrified that my heart can’t withstand another brush-off. Not when it’s already hanging by a thread.

When I stop, it’s not because I feel brave or strong, but because the narrow path has opened into a natural clearing. I lift my face to the sky, where the moon sits full and radiant, so bright it mutes the stars.

The footsteps crunch closer and finally halt.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Sebastian asks softly.

Even though I knew it was him, my heart leapfrogs in my chest as I turn to face him. “Why are you following me?”

“Who says I’m following you? Can’t I take a midnight walk if I want?”

My shell of calm cracks a little. “I’m not in the mood for banter. What do you want?”

“Among other things, to apologize.” He walks forward, right into my personal space, and before I can protest, a thick, soft blanket comes around my shoulders. “You’re not wearing enough layers.” The words ring oddly in my ears. He doesn’t sound reproachful—he sounds forlorn.

“Who told you?” I whisper, searching his face, the eyes that are too dark to discern clearly.

“I stayed up to greet Alex and Thea when they arrived and was in the room when Deacon told them.”

My cocoon shivers with seismic activity, then shatters. “I’m not dying,” I snap. “There’s no evidence yet that I have cancer. It’s just a biopsy.”

He nods calmly. “Yes, I know.”

“Then what are you doing?” My voice raises several octaves. “What do you want?”

“Like I said, I’m here to apologize.”

“For what?” I snarl, off-kilter from the tenderness in his voice.

I stiffen as his hands carefully cup my face. The heat of his skin is almost scalding on my cold cheeks, the touch itself shockingly intimate.

“For avoiding you,” he says softly, the words forming mist between our mouths. “For turning you away, shutting you out. But most of all, for not telling you that I’ve loved you since I was sixteen, and I’ve never fallen out of love with you. I’m hopelessly, sickeningly in love with you.”

My body and mind go utterly still. All I can think to say is, “What?”

The beginnings of a smile curve his mouth. “This is me doing everything backward—the usual direction when it comes to us. No first date, no flowers or chaste kisses for us. I want you. I want to make love and argue and laugh with you until you eventually murder me in my sleep. Hopefully when we’re old and senile.”

A hoarse laugh croaks from my lips even as tears leak from my eyes. “Is this real?” I blurt. “Because I’m suddenly scared I might be dreaming.”

His thumbs brush my tears away, then he pulls me against his warm chest, wrapping the lapels of his leather jacket around me, trapping me in heat and musk and… Sebastian.

“Does this feel real?” he murmurs.

I nod, tucking my arms around him, fingers digging into his hips, the steady thump of his heart under my ear.

“I might have cancer,” I whisper.

His arms tighten, promising to hold me together. Promising to stay. So I fall apart for the second time since that first phone call, giving release to a potent cocktail of old grief mixed with anxiety and dread. For these brief moments, I let him carry the burden. And he does, his grip and murmured love not wavering as I sob into his chest.

My tears are finally exhausted, leaving me feeling hollowed out and bone tired. I offer only a token protest as Sebastian tosses the blanket to the ground and swings me into his arms. My face pressed to the scarf around his neck, I don’t watch our progress, but I do recognize the distinct creak of the guesthouse’s stoop.