Summer Days (Fool's Gold #7)(60)

“That’s a lot of work.”

“I have the time and I need the money. I want to show the judge all the progress I’ve made on paying back your mother.”

She stopped walking and turned to face him. “You get that, right? That this is my home and I don’t want to leave? You understand what Fool’s Gold means to me. To have a place to belong, friends. That makes sense to you, right?”

She waited, watching him watch her, hoping for a sign, some hint he wasn’t doing what she thought. That she’d been wrong about him.

“I get it,” he said.

His gaze met hers, his eyes steady, his expression kind. She didn’t know how he could do that, how he could pretend to care and still be planning to take everything from her. Technically, he hadn’t lied. Omission was different. She would guess that, in his world, winning was all about nuance. The wording of the contract, the strength of a clause. But this wasn’t a court of law, and what was on the line mattered to her more than anything in the world.

“One thing I learned from moving around as much as I did as a kid was that the rules were always different. They were rarely universal. What would be considered a lie in one place was an acceptable tweak of the truth in another.”

“Is this about townies again?”

She nodded. “I had a best friend growing up. Melinda. She was the pretty one and sometimes the smart one, but I was okay with that. We were the same age and we liked the same things. Except maybe for college. She was determined to go to a good one, and I was more than ready to be done with school when I got my GED.”

She drew in a breath. As fragile as she was feeling right now, she wasn’t sure she could get to the story. But it was too late to stop.

“You told me about her,” Rafe said. “Isn’t she the one who got into a good college?”

Heidi nodded. “She was studying to be a vet. And there was this guy.”

“There’s always a guy, Heidi. Or a girl. That’s not about being a townie.”

“It was this time. He was popular, and the girls at the college couldn’t believe he’d fallen for Melinda. He swore he loved her. He swore he wanted to marry her. She gave him her heart, and that’s when everything went wrong.”

She paused, not sure how to tell the rest. “She came home for the summer. She was different. Broken. I thought being in love would make her stronger and happier, but it didn’t. I found out that some of the girls at college were bullying her. They were leaving messages on her voice mail, and saying horrible things about her online. They pressured him to break up with her, and he did.”

“Then he wasn’t worth it.”

“Something easy for us to figure out, but not so easy for Melinda. Because the bullying didn’t stop there. Those girls wanted her punished. Even after she left college, they continued to harass her.”

Heidi raised her chin. “She killed herself. After two attempts, she finally succeeded. The police investigated, but the girls had done a good job of covering their tracks and were never charged.”

Rafe swore. “I’m sorry.”

“Me, too. Because I learned a lot of things from that time in my life. Mostly, I learned that there are consequences to making yourself vulnerable to others.”

“What are you saying, Heidi?”

She wanted to tell him she knew, that he wasn’t fooling her anymore. But telling him that would mean giving away the tiny amount of power that information gave her.

“Nothing,” she said instead. “I have to go call a friend. Excuse me.”

She hurried into the house and went upstairs. Once alone in her room, she called Charlie and Annabelle to tell them that she’d decided to follow their plan and accept their help. She could only pray it was going to be enough.

* * *

TWO DAYS LATER, RAFE WAS NO closer to figuring out the mystery that was Heidi. She was pleasant, but distant. He’d been unable to get her alone, and while he wanted to say she was avoiding him on purpose, he couldn’t be sure.

Not that he had anything specific he wanted to say. But he felt as if she’d dismissed him, and he had no idea why.

She’d gone out to meet friends after dinner, leaving him alone and restless. He’d tried watching TV with his mother and Glen, but couldn’t get interested in the show. He wandered outside, where he found Shane returning from a last trip to the barn.

“You check on your horses a lot,” he commented, slouching into a wicker chair, part of a set that had been delivered the day before.

“New place after a long trip,” Shane said, sitting on the love seat opposite. “They’re nearly every penny I have, on the hoof. I’d be damned stupid not to make sure my investment was doing well.”

“Point taken.” Rafe squinted up at the sky. The sun still hadn’t set and the air was warm. He could hear crickets and something rustling in the bushes. The night would be beautiful—just right for seducing a woman. Too bad the one he wanted had lost interest in him. He stared at his brother. Lost interest right after Shane showed up.

“Want to talk about it?” his brother asked. “Whatever it is that has your panties in a bunch?”

Rafe raised an eyebrow. “I can still take you, little brother.”

“I have my doubts, but I think we’re both too old to test the theory. We’d look foolish rolling around in the dirt.”