Page 127 of Balance

I was going tohaveto talk to Dr. Stephens.

“Isn’t helping me a conflict of interest? Don’t you work for Miles?” I glanced back toward the house. She was, after all,hissubject.

She bit her bottom lip, gaze tearing. She didn’t answer my question. “I have a gift for youandsomething I need you to do.”

“What—” I began but was interrupted as she pressed a white-pink stone in my hands.

“This is a hag stone,” she said. “It possesses properties that will help you later in your journey.”

I traced my finger around the circular hole in the middle of the stone, the chipped rose polish of my nails bringing out the pink specks in the stone. The opening was small, not more than an inch in diameter—and almost heart-shaped.

“What properties?” I asked, but she’d moved on, pressing Miles’s pants into my hands next.

“Do you know how to sew?”

My face burned as I picked up the hint of accusation in her question. I stared at my knees. I knew how to sew, but now that she’d brought it up, I was humiliated at my oversight. I should have fixed Miles’s clothing first thing. Of course, Kathleen—a self-sufficient woman—would have a sewing kit to use. I should have asked.

I was already failing at this whole relationship-but-not-a-relationship thing.

“Yes…” I took the pants. “I’ll fix them. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” She closed her hands over mine, leaning over until her face was in my line of vision. “I want you to try something.”

“What is it?”

“When you work on this, I want you to focus on Miles—and what you want for him.”

I turned my attention from her face, back to her hands. My heart beat loudly in my ears, and—if I wasn’t entirely crazy—it was almost as if the ground at my feet began to hum. “What I want?”

“What you think you need from him,” she said, her touch leaving mine, once again moving to her necklace. This time I spotted the hint of a gold band mostly hidden under her hemmed neckline. The sunlight seemed to dim, and the air grew heavy. “And what he needs to be successful.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” I whispered, almost hesitant to break this atmosphere.

“Not quite,” she answered, a mysterious smile touching her weathered face.

I wrinkled my nose—these non-answers were growing rather old—and her grin grew wider as her eyes twinkled. “There it is.”

“What?” My voice was still low. There was no particular reason why—but this moment still felt profound.

“You might not be biologically theirs, but I still see my son’s mannerisms in you,” she said. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but you must have been close once.”

“Not really…” I looked away first, breaking the spell with my stilted response. “I want nothing to do with them.”

She made a sound of understanding before the roar of silence echoed in my ears. The world seemed to fade as her expression softened.

“The three of you will have to settle this. I don’t even need to talk to them to know they consider you theirs. It was obvious from the moment I met you. You can’t run from destiny forever.”

“They don’t…” I muttered, barely able to breathe at her implications, twisting my fingers in Miles’s pants. “Think I’m theirs…”

There was no way they did—not after everything.

“They wouldn’t even let me take their name,” I added. “I’m still Brosnan… kind of.”

Now I was Dubois, but my marriage to Bryce really didn’t count. The point was, changing my name had been one of my first requests. I’d been looking for a chance to leave the name Brosnan, and the memories associated with it, behind forever. And I’d been shut down.

“Your last name was Brosnan?” Kathleen twisted the necklace, her frown twisting. “Then of course they wouldn’t let you change it—that’s disrespectful.”

“Disrespectful?” I asked, the suffocating lump weighing over my chest loosening slightly. “What do you mean?”