Page 12 of Won't Back Down

CHAPTER 5

WILLA

I’d always loved St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. Its soaring vaulted ceilings and carved beams always reminded me of the inside of some massive, inverted ship, a detail that usually brought me comfort. But not today. I could hardly focus on anything the priest was saying about my grandparents’ contributions to Hatterwick over their eighty-odd years. Not with my parents sitting in the front pew a mere ten feet away.

They’d been the ones to greet the other mourners and accept condolences in the narthex, as if they’d had anything to do with the planning of this service. But if there was anything my parents were adept at, it was putting on the proper face in public. Unlike me. Even if they hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have been able to face the seemingly endless throngs of people streaming into the church. With them here… Well, I was doing good to honor my grandparents by sitting through the service at all.

Thanks to Sawyer’s quick thinking, I’d been sequestered away in the back halls of the church, only coming out from the side door normally used by grooms during weddings to take my place moments before the service began. I’d seen my parents in the front row and kept my eyes averted as I’d hurried to my seat alone on the other side of the aisle. But I’d felt their eyes on me, and it made my shoulders itch with a prickle of not safe.

Not that they’d do a thing in front of all these people. And not that anyone here could possibly understand all the ways they’d hurt me without ever laying a hand on me. I’d been the disappointment. The weird one. Never able to live up to family expectations. I’d paid for that failing. God, how I’d paid.

I’m never going back. Not ever. Nothing they can say or do can make me. I’m an adult. They have no hold over me anymore.

A big, warm hand settled on my shoulder from the row behind me. I knew without looking that it was Sawyer because the touch settled me, as he’d always settled me. The bands around my chest loosened, and I could breathe again. In silent gratitude, I covered his fingers with mine.

The prospect of facing them felt so different, knowing that he had my back. I wished he was next to me on the hard wooden bench so I could lean into the warmth and strength of him. But that would give people the impression we were more than we were. He wasn’t family in that sense, and I didn’t want him having to pay for his kindness by facing any kind of interrogation about his place by my side. Still, he maintained that link through the rest of the service, keeping me grounded.

Then it was over, and hundreds of feet began shuffling against the worn stone floors toward the exit. Sucking in a deep breath, I worked to button down my grief so I could deal with what came next.

I should’ve been making a run for it.

“Wilhelmina.”

At the sound of my father’s voice, I simply froze. A pure prey response. I’d wanted to appear strong, unaffected, yet I could only stand like a terrified rabbit as they approached, too caught up in old patterns to do anything else.

My mother was crying. Appropriate. This was a memorial service for both of her parents. I hadn’t seen her when Grandma passed. Granddaddy had shielded me from both of them, though he hadn’t known any of the specifics. But it seemed she felt some legitimate grief. No matter how I felt about her, she had loved them in her own way. Her eyes were drenched with tears as she reached for me.

I flinched, taking a full step back, out of reach.

“How can you be so childish as to deny your mother comfort at a time like this?” My father kept his tone low, but I felt the snap of his displeasure, nonetheless.

This wasn’t about my mother’s grief. This was about how it looked. Never mind that they’d lived off-island for more than a decade. Appearances were always forefront in my father’s mind. If he thought the islanders had somehow missed the fact that they hadn’t even returned once a year to check on my grandparents, he was sorely mistaken. I was the one who’d come back. I was the one who’d stayed. I was the one who gave a damn about my legacy here.

But my conditioning ran deep, and as my father’s icy disapproval radiated over me, the panic returned with a vengeance, tightening like a vise around my chest. It didn’t matter that I recognized it. Logic was about as effective at interrupting a panic attack as it was for stopping a runaway train.

Then Sawyer was there, his hand at the small of my back.

“Willa has the right to handle her grief in whatever way she feels is necessary. That does not include being obligated to interact with you.”

It took everything I had not to collapse into him, but by damn, I wasn’t going to look weak right now.

My father looked down his nose at Sawyer as he always had, though Sawyer was now taller, bigger, and broader than my father by a lot. And in his dress blues, he looked powerful and in control. Sexy. Not that this was the time to notice that.

“This doesn’t concern you, boy.” My father’s tone was one of clear dismissal.

Sawyer just moved closer to me, subtly nudging me slightly behind him. “Willa concerns me. She doesn’t want to see you, so she doesn’t have to.”

Unlike my father’s voice, Sawyer’s wasn’t modulated to not be overheard. At his words, multiple sets of eyes turned in our direction.

No, no. No attention. I just want to go.

I fought not to shrink under the focus.

My father took a step toward us, opening his mouth to deliver some scathing comeback.

Sawyer’s hands curled into fists, and he stepped fully in front of me. Even beneath the short beard he’d grown, I could see a muscle jumping in his jaw. This time, he did lower his voice to an outright growl that would’ve done Roy proud. “Please, give me a reason. If you think I won’t physically remove you from her presence, think again, old man. I’m not a kid that you can intimidate anymore.”

I’d never considered myself a violent person. In general, I believed calmer heads were always the answer. But having this man I’d known all my life threaten bodily harm against the person who’d made my life a living hell apparently appealed to my baser instincts, because the panic that had gripped me by the throat was washed away in a tide of outright lust.