Page 41 of Shallow

Expect everything and givenothing.

The phrase repeats itself in my head as I push the door open and call Malcolm. As I drop my phone in my purse, the brown bottle catches my eye, and months of resistance vanish the minute I wrap my fingers aroundit.

Fourteen

Cary

“We had a visitor yesterday.”My father shoves his hands into his pockets, and I notice how frayed they are. In fact, his pants are completely worn, the knees barely held together by a single thread. He’s standing by the door of my office, staring out the window with a blank look on his face. I know that look. And even if I didn’t, the dark circles under his eyes betray him. He hasn’t beensleeping.

That makes two ofus.

I raise an eyebrow, still keeping my eyes on the laptop screen as I ignore another unpaid invoice. “Oh? The Queen passing through townagain?”

He chuckles, jingling the change in his pocket. “Close. MitchMcDaniel.”

The name sends a jolt down my spine. The fact that Taryn’s father made a special trip to the motel to see my parents isn’t good. It means I’m running out of time, and that’s the one thing I can’t afford tolose.

“I assume he wasn’t dropping by to invite you to lunch at the country club. Is there aproblem?”

“No, noproblem.”

I wince as the jingling gets louder. My father always flips coins in his pocket when he lies. Groaning, I close out the accounting program and lean back in my chair, giving him my full attention. He’s aged in the last few months. His salt and pepper hair has lost most of its pepper, and the lines around his mouth have gone from hints to caverns. The knife that sank into my heart when he sold his soul for mine twists a littledeeper.

“The next place he visits will be here, so you might as well be straight withme.”

He sighs, the incessant jingling coming to a stop. “He wants payment, Carrick. For the last three months and this month withinterest.”

“And if we don’tpay?”

“He’s going to take themotel.”

“He can’t do that.” I simultaneously slam my fist on the desk and kick the inside ofit.

My mother gives me a weak smile. Her black hair is streaked with gray and pulled back in a low ponytail. The style shows off a once youthful face now riddled with fatigue. “He can, and he will. We signed the contract. Since his son’s company built those two high-rise hotels on either side of us, we can’t compete. The Castaway Sands isn’t bringing in enough income to cover our employees’ salaries, our operating expenses, and to pay him. I think it’s a lostcause.”

I refuse to back down. “Don’t say that. There’s got to be something we cando.”

Before I can say anything else, my office door swings open so hard it bounces against the doorstopper. All three of us turn to see a tear-streaked Shiloh with her fists curled by her side. She looks destroyed—as if she’s just walked through hell and fought the devil on her way out. We lock eyes and she starts to speak, but stops herself the minute she sees the woman sitting across fromme.

The muscles in my mother’s hand tighten underneath mine as she pulls it away. She narrows a gaze on Shiloh and sits up straight. “So, the rumors aretrue.”

Shiloh’s face pales. “Mrs.Kincaid.”

“Mom, Dad, you remember Shiloh West,” I say, trying to cut the tension in theroom.

“How could we forget the woman responsible for putting our son behindbars?”

“Pam!” my father warns, shooting my mother alook.

“What? It’s true. Because of her, our son payed two years of a sentence that wasn’t his. How do you do it?” she asks, looking back at Shiloh. “How do you sleep at night living with the guilt of the lives you’veruined?”

“Enough!” Iyell.

The clouds in Shiloh’s eyes fade away, revealing a familiar empty void. I saw it the night she walked away. There’s nothing but detachment andcoldness.

And then she’s gone. Leaving the door wide open as she tears down the hallway with her hand over her mouth. She deserves my mother’s words for the pain she’s caused my family. Her feelings shouldn’t matter. I shouldn’t care, so no one is more surprised than me when I find myself out of my chair and halfway across my office, just as my mother grabs mywrist.

“Don’t you dare fall under that woman’s spell again,Carrick.”