Shadows At Sunset - Anne Stuart [90]
“Something horrible happened to you?”
“No. Not really. It’s something else, something that happened a long time ago, something ugly and cruel. I don’t know what it was, and I don’t want to know. I just don’t like it.”
“Okay,” he said evenly. “So I’m not pond scum. But I know what your father’s capable of and I still work for him. What does that make me?”
“A snake,” she said without hesitation. “But not without redemption. I can’t let him win. I can’t let him hurt Rachel-Ann any more. I don’t know what he’s done to her over the years, but it sickens me, the way he looks at her, the way he touches her.”
“Do you think he’s had sex with her? Do you think he abused her as a child?” It was astonishing how casual, almost clinical he sounded.
“I don’t know. Maybe not. But even if he didn’t commit physical incest he’s committed emotional incest over the years. And she has to break free of him.”
“Isn’t that her problem? You spend your life trying to fix everything, trying to save everyone. You even think I’m salvageable which, trust me, I’m not. What about you?”
“Me?” She laughed, entirely without humor. “I don’t think I’m perfect. I know what a fucked-up, codependent mess I am. I’m stubborn, judgmental, interfering, afraid of everything under the sun, unresponsive, bad-tempered—”
“What a litany of crimes!” he said softly.
“Don’t tell me you disagree. You’ve said half of those things yourself.”
“I never said you were unresponsive.”
He shouldn’t have said that. Not with her sitting on his bed, alone in the huge old house. Not when he was going to leave.
She hesitated, and he wondered if she’d ignore it. “No,” she said finally. “That was my husband. And that’s another story. We’re trying to save Rachel-Ann.”
“You’re trying to save Rachel-Ann, Jilly. I’m trying to get the hell out of here.”
“And you’d just turn her over to him? Just let it happen?” she said in disbelief.
She’d managed to startle him with her insight. “What makes you think I’d turn her over to him?”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing, by leaving? She needs our help, Coltrane! I thought you cared about her.”
“He’s not going to get her. And stop being so melodramatic—it’s not your style. What makes you think I care about her?”
“I don’t know. Instinct, I guess. Are you in love with her?”
“Jesus Christ, Jillian!” he exploded softly. “What kind of dream world are you living in? Do I look like the kind of man who walks around suffering from unrequited love? Do I look like the kind of man to harbor a secret passion?”
Her grin was wry. “No, I suppose not. Clearly you don’t give a shit about anyone in this household.”
“And you care too much.”
“Maybe I do,” she said calmly.
“And maybe you should start putting a little bit of that prodigious energy toward yourself. Have you ever done anything in your entire life that was just for you and not for your damned family or this ruined old house?”
“Of course I have.”
“Name one thing. Even better, prove it. Tell me one thing you want, something that’s selfish, greedy and absolutely bad for you. Something everyone will scold you for and shake their heads and say ‘She’s just as bad as the rest of her family.’ I dare you to. Something weak and indulgent, like an ice-cream sundae. Want do you want, Jilly?”
She looked at him across the dawn-swept room, her brown eyes calm and clear. “You,” she said.
21
Coltrane was looking at her as if she’d suddenly grown two heads. Jilly couldn’t blame him. If there’d been a mirror nearby she would have checked herself. Surely that word hadn’t come from her mouth?
After a moment he recovered himself. “They must have given you more pain medication than I thought,” he drawled.
“They didn’t give me any painkillers, you idiot. They sent some home with me in case I needed them but I didn’t take any.”
“Then why did you zonk out in the car like that?”
The man was dense, and she was tired of being subtle. “Because I was exhausted.