Page 20 of Won't Back Down
Delilah answered the door, massive feather earrings dangling from her ears. Her lovely dark eyes went wide at the sight of me.
“Is Florence here?”
“Yes, absolutely. Come in, child.” Her warm arm slid around me, ushering me inside, and I managed not to flinch at the touch.
Florence emerged from her home office, a pair of reading glasses perched on her long nose. At the sight of me, she pulled off the glasses and straightened into battle posture. I must’ve looked pretty bad.
The back door slammed. “Hey, I thought I saw—Wren, what’s wrong?”
Sawyer closed the distance to where I stood in a blink, stopping just short of touching me.
I couldn’t look at him or give into the urge to throw myself into his arms, or I’d never get through this. Instead, I kept my focus on Florence. “I need your advice as an attorney. I know that this is not going to be your area of expertise, but you are the only one that I trust.”
She offered a decisive nod. “Okay, do you want to talk privately?”
I thought about it. I wasn’t keen to share even the barest details of my own private hell with anyone, but I trusted everyone in this room. “No.”
“Then let’s move this into the kitchen, and I’ll make you some tea.” Delilah steered me in that direction, and the rest of them followed.
As Delilah clattered around, putting a kettle on to boil and filling a tea ball with loose leaves, I told them what Mr. O’Shea had told me.
“That’s ridiculous!” Sawyer burst out. “How could they possibly challenge your competency? You are one of the most stable, sane people I know.”
I’d never told him this. Never wanted to tell him, because I didn’t want to change how he looked at me. But if this went forward, he’d find out, eventually. Better to get it over with now, before my foolish heart managed to convince me there could be anything more between us but friendship.
I wrapped my hands around the warm mug Delilah passed me. “Because I was institutionalized for two years.”
He stared at me, brows drawn together in confusion. “What?”
“That’s where I went when they dragged me off-island. After I got out of the hospital, they had me committed and kept me there for two years.”
With a rush of profanity, Sawyer shot to his feet so fast, his chair clattered to the floor. His fury was palpable. I both appreciated his instant defense and was overwhelmed by it. This was as much rage over what was done to me as rage at his own impotence to stop it. Not that he’d have been able to do anything about it if he had known back then.
“Sawyer!” Florence’s voice snapped out. “Reel it in. She doesn’t need that right now.”
He stopped his restless stalking of the kitchen, hands curled to fists, and worked on stuffing his rage back down. “Tell me one thing. Did Jace know?”
Ah, so that was also underneath this reaction. Needing to know if his oldest friend would’ve betrayed me like that.
“No. Not until after I turned eighteen and managed to contact him. He’s the reason I got out. And that’s the only reason I didn’t cut him off with everyone else.”
A little of the tension in him eased, and he righted the chair, sitting back down. “Sorry.”
I clutched the mug a little tighter as I turned my attention back to Florence. “What I want to know is if they can really do this.”
The older woman dragged a hand down her face. “Well, as you know, this is not my area, but to my knowledge, yes, they can try.”
My breath wheezed out as that sucker punch hit me again.
“But there is a way out. Potentially,” she added.
Maybe I’d get the hope I’d come seeking after all. “Great. What is it?”
“Well, the reason they have the right to challenge is because they are your next of kin.”
“Even though we’ve been estranged for a decade?”
“Even though.”