Hold Me (Fool's Gold #16)(61)

How had everything gone so wrong so fast?

* * *

DESTINY DIDN’T KNOW if she should scream, cry or take up drinking. She could make a case for any of those actions, along with several others.

Dakota’s prediction had been right. Starr had been found on a bench in the bus depot. She’d missed the earlier Greyhound that went to Los Angeles and was instead heading to San Francisco. From there, she’d told the deputy who’d found her, she was planning on taking a plane to Nashville.

She’d had five hundred dollars in cash, a small suitcase and her guitar. Destiny couldn’t get over the terrifying thought of an innocent fifteen-year-old girl on her own in the world.

Kipling had driven them both home and left them to work it out. He’d promised to drop by later, to check on them. Destiny had wanted to beg him to stay—she didn’t know what on earth she was supposed to do or say. But she’d let him go and now had to deal with the aftermath herself.

She and Starr sat across from each other in their small living room and tried to figure out what to say. She supposed the good news was that nothing awful had happened. Maybe they’d both learned a cheap lesson. She just wasn’t sure what it was.

She studied her sister. Starr stared at her hands or the floor. Her red hair hung down, covering her face. Or maybe keeping the world at bay, Destiny thought.

The room was quiet. Somewhere a clock ticked. A car drove by. Aside from that, there was nothing. Not even the sound of their breathing.

Indecision pulled at her. What was she supposed to say? How did she make this right? She supposed the bigger issue was she hadn’t known there was a problem—certainly not one that warranted running away.

She drew in a breath. “Starr, I—”

Her sister’s head snapped up. Her green eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I lied. Get over it. You would have done the same if you were me. What was I supposed to do? Just wait for you to get tired of me? I’m not going back to that boarding school. You can’t make me.”

So much anger. So much energy. And so much pain. Destiny felt her heart flinch as she realized how Starr had been suffering. And she’d never guessed.

“You think I don’t know,” her sister continued, coming to her feet. Her hands were tight fists at her sides. “I know. It’s not hard to figure out. Nobody wants me. Not you, not my dad.” Tears spilled from her eyes. “He doesn’t even know when it’s my birthday. I’m his kid. How come he doesn’t know that?”

Destiny stood and crossed to her. She tried to pull Starr close, but her sister shrugged away.

“Don’t pretend you care now,” the teen snapped.

Destiny took a step back. “I care. I took you in. I brought you here. I thought we were doing well together.”

“Oh, sure. It’s great. You’re counting the days until school starts and you can get rid of me. We talked about your job before. About how it was better for me to go back to boarding school. Because you can’t wait to get rid of me.”

While that wasn’t true, Destiny had been thinking she would only have Starr in the summers. “My work,” she began, only to realize that wasn’t the point. “Can we talk?” she asked. “Just sit and talk?”

Starr wiped away her tears and sank back onto the sofa. Destiny took the chair opposite and tried to figure out what to say.

“You scared me,” she began, thinking it was the truth. “When Dakota called from camp and said you’d never arrived, I was so afraid of what had happened.”

“I didn’t think they’d call,” Starr grumbled.

“So you’d have all day to get away? And then what? Didn’t you think I’d totally freak out?”

Her sister shrugged.

“Starr, you have to know I care about you.”

“Do you?” the teen asked. “Do you really? Can you honestly say you were thrilled when you got that call from the lawyer? Because you’d just been sitting here thinking if only you had some kid sister you’d never met, then your life would be perfect?”

“I was surprised, but I didn’t hesitate. I wanted you to come live here.”

“Whatever. I don’t believe you. You don’t care about anything, ever. You’re like a robot. You never get mad, you never get happy. You’re the same all the time. Regular people don’t act like that.”

People who never wanted to deal with the mess of highs and lows did, Destiny thought grimly. Because she knew the price of feeling too much. Only until right now, she’d never considered that there was a price to trying not to feel anything. The price of Starr not knowing she belonged.

“I’m sorry you think I don’t care,” she said quietly. “I do. I care a lot.”

Her sister’s mouth pulled into a straight line. Disbelief radiated from her. “Sure you do.”

Irritation battled with concern and started to win. “You’re going to ignore the truth because it’s not what you want to hear,” Destiny snapped. “Just like you were going to run away without thinking about the consequences. You’re fifteen. You’re not ready to be on your own. Life is complicated. You can’t hide from your problems. They follow you wherever you go.”

“You should have let me figure that out on my own. That would have made it easy for you, and isn’t that what matters?”