Page 21 of Hell of a Mess

Eighteen

Lace

Jayda had prepared me for the fact that Gathe Bowen was waiting to meet me in the kitchen.

She also said he talked too much and might ask things I didn’t want to talk about.

If so, I was to tell him that. He was easygoing and full of himself.

At least, that was her description. She’d also said he was nothing like Locke.

The two were very different. While Locke looked more like Mal, Gathe took after his mother in appearance.

It seemed I did, too, but then I’d been seeing my mother in the mirror for years now.

My face was almost identical to the one I remembered smiling at me.

When I followed her into the kitchen, instant relief, along with a fluttering in my stomach, came with the sight of Luther sitting at the end of the long table.

Maui was sitting happily at his feet, slapping his tail against the hardwood.

It was a struggle not to openly stare at the sight the two of them made.

But I managed to shift my attention to the other man at the table.

Blond. Very blond. He reminded me of a surfer.

His lips tugged up into a smile, and he stood up.

“Good morning,” he said with a thick Southern drawl that didn’t fit the surfer-boy image. “I’m Gathe,” he told me. “But I imagine Jayda already filled you in on that.”

“And warned her that you have no filter and can’t shut up,” Jayda piped in before motioning for me to take a seat at the table. “I’ll bring you something to eat.”

Eat. What was she going to bring me to eat?

I tensed and looked over at the stove and the food she’d prepared.

There were no boiled eggs and wheat toast. No berries.

My heart rate instantly shot up. I couldn’t eat that.

Every meal she had given me I’d struggled to eat even a few bites.

I hadn’t understood why until now. My memory was back.

“What’s wrong?” Luther’s voice seemed to slow my mounting panic as my focus swung to him.

“I…” What did I say? How did I explain?

He pushed back his chair and stood up, his eyes never leaving my face. “Lace,” he said, and again, there was a moment of ease with it.

“I-I-I’m not supposed to eat,” I stammered out, even while knowing that I wasn’t at my father’s house.

He wasn’t here to see what I ate. I wasn’t going back.

“Do you have food allergies?” he asked, moving closer to me.

I shook my head, although perhaps I should have lied. It would make me seem less crazy.

“Then tell me why you can’t eat,” he said sternly.

“Luther, you’re scaring her,” Jayda told him.

He shook his head, not taking his eyes off me. “No, she was already scared.” When he reached me, he took my chin between his thumb and forefinger and narrowed his eyes as he studied me. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

I swallowed, wishing I hadn’t left the room. I was safe there. No questions to answer. No darkness to hide.

“I can’t gain weight,” I whispered.

“You fucking need to gain weight,” he said angrily. “Do you have an eating disorder?”

I started to say no, but maybe I did. One that had been forced upon me.

“This is why you couldn’t eat the cupcake, isn’t it?” Realization dawned on his face.

I said nothing.

“Lace”—my name sounded like a warning—“tell me what this is about. You can see yourself in the goddamn mirror. You know that you’re too thin.”

Was I? I’d always been criticized. First by my father—Alpheus—and then Arun.

Closing my eyes, I forced out the truth. I didn’t want to lie to him. Anyone but him. All he’d done was help me. “If I gain weight, I am punished.” And I had been since the day I’d been forced to become my sister. “She was perfect before. I have to be perfect too.”

The room was silent, and it was deafening. My eyes stayed tightly shut. I’d told someone. It was only a small piece of the horror that I’d lived, but it was still something I’d never shared.

“Who punished you?” The coldness in Luther’s tone made me shiver.

“My—” I stopped. No, that wasn’t who he was. “Al-Alpheus.”

“Motherfucker,” Luther hissed as he let go of my chin.

At the loss of his touch, my eyes opened.

His hand touched my back, and he pressed me forward. “You’re gonna sit at this table and eat while I watch. The son of a bitch isn’t here, and he’s not getting near you again.”

My eyes widened, and for a moment, I wanted to run from the room. Bolt before anyone could stop me. How was I supposed to eat while he watched me? What if I threw up?

“No, please,” I begged, but he kept moving me toward the table.

“What is it you normally eat for breakfast?” Jayda asked me.

“She needs the waffles, and butter, and syrup.” Luther still sounded angry.

“Luther, she’s panicking. Look at her,” Jayda told him. “If she’s not used to things like that, it will make her sick.”

He jerked out a chair, and I sat down reluctantly.

Luther grabbed the back of the chair and leaned down close to my face. “What do you eat?” he asked with less aggression this time.

“A boiled egg and a half cup of fresh berries,” I replied.

His jaw ticced, and he studied me for a moment. “Make her two boiled eggs and add some whipped cream to a bowl of berries,” he told Jayda without looking away from me. “You don’t have to eat all of it. But you’re going to eat more than one damn egg and a handful of berries.”

I thought maybe I could do that. I wanted to. For him.

I nodded.

“Good girl,” he said, then stood back up, letting go of my chair and walking over to take the seat he’d been sitting in earlier.

A small thrill shot through me, and I remembered. The night he’d found me. Blinking, I stared at him. I had forgotten that part of the night. But the rush of endorphins from those two words reminded me.

“When are we going to kill him?” Gathe asked, reminding me that he was in the room. “Because I want to take a slice at the fucker.”

Luther lifted his cup. “Yeah, but there may not be much left of him to slice when I’m done.”

“Could you please keep the shop talk to yourselves?” Jayda asked.

They were discussing killing someone, and it should horrify me, but all I could do was sit in my small bubble of happiness because Luther had praised me. I’d done something right. I wanted more of that feeling.

Maybe eating two boiled eggs wouldn’t be so bad after all. And I had forgotten what whipped cream tasted like. I imagined it was delicious on berries.

It wasn’t healthy that I’d done nothing but been keenly aware of Luther’s absence and sought him at every turn since he’d left the kitchen this morning.

But I’d eaten whipped cream, and I wanted more.

It hadn’t made me sick, and the fear that typically clawed at me if I even thought of eating something that wasn’t on the strict diet my father—Alpheus—had kept me on most of my life had vanished.

All I wanted to do was please Luther, and eating did that.

So, I had eaten all of my food and enjoyed it.

Lunch, however, he’d not been around, and I couldn’t eat the meal that Jayda had made for me.

At least not all of it. I took the lettuce and tomato off the sandwich and ate both of those items, along with the fresh-cut strawberries.

When she noticed and apologized, asking me what I normally ate, I felt like a failure.

I lied then and told her I didn’t normally eat lunch, which wasn’t a complete lie.

Some days, the thought of boiled cabbage or spinach had been so unappealing that I went without.

But most of the time, I’d been so hungry that I ate whatever I was allowed to have.

I wasn’t sure of the time, but I knew it had to be getting close to dinner, and that made me anxious. I didn’t want to face another meal. At least one where Luther wasn’t present. I wondered if he would return before then and hoped that was the case.

The door opening up to the back patio, where I’d been sitting and enjoying the peacefulness that had never been a part of my life before, drew my attention.

The sight of wild blonde curls and a bright smile greeted me, along with Maui, who appeared to be thrilled, as his entire backside wagged along with his tail.

“Hello!” the small beauty said, making her way toward me.

I already knew this must be Linc’s daughter, Stevie. There wasn’t much about her that looked like him, except for the eyes. They were an identical match to his, just much friendlier.

“Hello,” I replied, straightening in my seat.

“You are really pretty,” she replied as she studied me. “Daddy didn’t tell me that.”

I smiled. “You’re rather beautiful yourself,” I told her.

She nodded. “I know. Do you like brownies? Jayda made some for me, and I’ll share with you. But they don’t have milk or nuts. I’m allergic to them. But it’s okay. I like oat milk and sunflower butter. I’m not missing a thing. Jayda said that nuts are yucky.”

I started to respond when the door opened again and a woman appeared. Now, that was who Stevie looked like. She even had the curls; they were just more tamed than her daughter’s.

“I’m sorry if she bombarded you,” the woman apologized. “She was very excited to hear that we had a guest staying with us.”

I shook my head. “Oh, no, I’m happy to have the company.”

The woman glanced at her daughter with the kind of smile that was filled with love, pride, and gentleness. All the things I remembered in my mother’s gaze. The ache that had never gone away from the loss stretched in my chest, making it harder to take a deep breath.

“I’m Branwen,” the woman told me, but then I had already figured that out. “And this little bundle of energy is Stevie.”

Stevie scrunched her nose. “I forgot to tell her my name.”

A laugh bubbled out of me, and her gaze swung to mine.

“It’s okay. Maui has told me all about you.”

Her eyes widened then, and she looked down at her dog. “You talked to Maui? He only talks to Luther. He must really like you.”

Just hearing Luther’s name made my heart rate pick up.

“Why don’t you take Maui to the kitchen and help Jayda with the tray of treats she’s making?” Branwen suggested.

Stevie nodded, her eyes lighting up with excitement over the mention of treats, and called to her dog before running back to the door.

Maui scampered after her, and I watched them go.

I’d never had a childhood. At least not a normal one.

That must be what it looked like. No fear or care in the world. Just happiness around every corner.

Branwen sank into the chair across from me and let out a sigh. “It’s good to be home. Travel with her is always an adventure, but it’s tiresome.”

There was nothing I could say to that. I had no reference or experience in traveling with a child. I simply smiled.

“I hope you’ve been comfortable here. I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” she told me.

“I have been,” I replied. “You have a beautiful home.”

“Thank you. Linc and Luther have good taste,” she said.

“Although I have softened the place up some. Added color and decoration where things were bare and masculine before. I am assuming Luther’s side of the house still is.

I’ve never seen it.” She chuckled softly. “I guess that sounds odd, doesn’t it?”

No, it didn’t. I’d lived in the same house my entire life, and there were areas I never saw. I wasn’t allowed to go to the third floor at all, and I had been restricted to my bedroom and the basement many days. I wasn’t going to tell her that though.

“He decorates in darker colors, but it is nice. Comfortable,” I told her.

“Comfortable is not a description I would have imagined,” she mused. “Not with Luther and his…taste in things.”

What did she mean by that?

The door swung open again, and Stevie came bounding out with Maui at her heels, followed by Jayda carrying a tray of food. My stomach knotted up at the sight of it. Was I expected to eat? Again?

“Jayda made sunflower butter fudge!” Stevie announced gleefully.

Dread was rolling into panic when the answer to my problems appeared with a swagger that had me holding my breath as I watched him.