Page 14 of Take Her
Now, she was just my last living connection to Isabelle because, strangely, Isabelle’s family hadn’t wanted to stay in touch after she’d died.
Maybe because they blamed me for her death.
I couldn’t fault them—I blamed me, too.
Gracie’s lips scraped across my palm in wet hope once the apple was gone. “Cut it out,” I said, thumping a hand against her neck. I’d check her hooves for her tomorrow. She leaned over and tried to nuzzle me roughly, nearly whapping me with her chin.
“I missed you too,” I promised, before I grabbed the rest of what I’d brought from my truck and headed to the main house.
It took a moment to turn off the possibly excessive alarm system—I didn’t want anyone breaking in here and squatting, with me gone all the time—and gave myself a few minutes to adapt to my surroundings.
It was such a dramatic shift from the way I lived in the city, it felt like someone had gone and twisted a kaleidoscope on me, losing the sharpness of my day-to-day life, pushing everything into softer focus.
And that was because this place had been Isabelle’s.
My apartment was a dark-wood-and-leather man cave, but she’d kept the farm light and airy, with pastel-colored furniture, oil paintings she’d done, and pictures of people smiling on the walls.
Some of them were even of me.
I walked into the kitchen to put my supplies away and crack open a beer, then systematically went through the whole home opening the curtains on all of the windows, and some of the windows themselves, fully committed to everything I’d decided on the drive up. I’d be pissed if I was offed on the cinnamon-roll couch—Isabelle and I had nicknamed it that because it was the color of icing, and it had overstuffed upholstery with scrolled arms—but if they did it right I’d only have a moment to be upset.
I wrote a quick note on a piece of paper that I wanted Gracie to go to Alonzo and his kids, popped it on the fridge behind a magnet, and then went to the only place in the home that was truly mine—a panic room-type space I’d had them inset into an old root cellar, because paranoia and I were old friends, and I’d occasionally needed to bring my work on vacation with me.
I booted up all my systems to make sure they’d still log in and went upstairs to take an evening nap, letting fresh air from outside wash over me.
If I was still alive when I woke up, Daddy’s little girl wasn’t going to be the only one that was up late.
6
LIA
Sarah’s hair is the color of the night, her eyes are the color of the sky, and she has been my brother’s girlfriend since we were both fifteen.
—Caleb, from One of a Thousand Wishes by A. R. McGeorge
Rhaim was stupid if he thought a little physical labor was going to scare me away.
I’d gone to five boarding schools in the past decade—he had no idea how many times I’d been hazed.
But knowing I was going to stay up all night was daunting, especially after not being able to sleep all day. I’d kept replaying all the decisions I’d made since going to Vertigo on Friday, trying to figure out a way that would’ve avoided this.
Why the fuck did I have to go and ruin everything by getting horny? kept running through my head like a freight train, quickly followed by, And why the fuck had I doubled down and asked to call him Daddy?
Had that truly been a blow to his ego, or was he understandably creeped out because he was my actual father’s friend?
On the scale of Shit That was Fucked Up With Lia, that was actually pretty low—he just didn’t know it yet.
He only saw my clothing and my money—he didn’t know a goddamned thing about the girl on the inside, and how infrequently I’d actually gotten to be “little” growing up.
No one had ever protected me.
Except for him.
Just the once.
“And you’re sure, miss?” my driver asked for the fourth time, derailing my thoughts as he pulled into the lowest level of the garage beneath my father’s building. I took a deep sip of the coffee I was nursing in my hands before answering.
“Yes.” Then I went for the door and paused. I didn’t know when he was supposed to return for me.