Page 109 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 1

“Sometimes love means doing the hard thing, Truman. And I love you enough to do the hard things.”

“I can see that now. I see how much you love me.” I looked at him and tried to appear lovestruck. “You loved me enough to come up with an amazing plan. And I messed it up. I messed it all up.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you tried to set a little fire to get my attention, I’d failed to ship out a big delivery of essential oils that day.

If I’d just done my job instead of being lazy, the fire would have never gotten out of hand.

Oh, how you must have been so upset! I feel terrible.

” I let my true feelings of regret and anger bring real tears to my eyes.

“It could have been contained if not for my stupid, stupid procrastination. It’s all my fault.

All you wanted to do was…” I faked a big gulping sob, and Barney stared at me for a few beats.

I assumed he was trying to determine whether or not to continue trying to pin the arson on Sam or accept my understanding and let it be.

This was the moment of truth.

Barney finally pulled me in for a hug.

“Shhh, shhh. It’s okay. There, now. It’s all over. It is what it is. Although that certainly does explain why it got out of hand.”

That wasn’t enough. It wasn’t an actual confession. I needed more.

“But then the motorcycle crash in the mountains. I feel like I misunderstood what I was supposed to do. Run? Should I have stayed there and made sure he was standing by the bike? I felt so stupid, Barney. I didn’t know what you wanted me to do.

Tell me what I should have done.” I cried on his shoulder.

“Of course you should have run, sweet pea. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I simply wanted to scare him away from here and remind you how unsafe and unreliable a man like him is. You did the right thing. Of course you did. There, now. Stop the waterworks. It’s alright now.”

“After the time in front of the shop, I wasn’t sure. But I should have known you didn’t want to hurt anyone. I knew it had to be a mistake.”

“I wasn’t expecting those other two to interfere,” he said peevishly. “And I certainly wasn’t expecting some imbecile driver behind me to honk and scare me to death.”

“I’m relieved to know that,” I said softly. “Because when I think about how close I came to being in the shop the night of the fire…” I shivered.

“I would have never set that fire if you’d been there. Surely you know that. I’m not stupid, Truman, and that is hardly the first fire I’ve set.”

Suddenly, I remembered the timing of Patrick Stanner’s shed burning to the ground. It had happened a week after the Stanner brothers had beat me up behind my shop.

I pulled out of Barney’s arms and stared at him. “You burned down Patrick Stanner’s shed.”

The glint in his eyes was a combination of pride and pure malice. “He hurt my sweet pea.”

“Did you… did you really do all of these things… for me?” I couldn’t believe it. How was it possible I’d caused all of these horrible events in Aster Valley after already being the town pariah from years ago?

His eyes bore into me. “I did. Don’t you know I would do anything for you, Truman?”

“Even the cookies?”

“Well, you forced my hand.”

“And is that when you snuck the mala into the saddlebags?”

He looked put out. “You needed to understand why he wasn’t right for you. He’s a criminal, Truman.”

Suddenly, instead of feeling angry and vengeful or even horrified and betrayed, I felt…

tired. Tired of one more person in my life thinking they knew better than I did about what I needed in my life.

One more person thinking they could control me by lying to me or for me or simply not listening to me when I tried standing up for myself.

“But why didn’t you listen to me when I told you I just wanted to be friends?” I asked in a soft voice. “Why didn’t you trust that I knew what was best for me?”

His eyes narrowed the tiniest bit. “Because you don’t. You have a long history of making the wrong decisions.”

Okay, now I was angry. “How can you say that? What decisions have I made that were wrong?”

He stood and began pacing. “Oh, I don’t know.

Let’s start with loaning the sled to the stupidest boys in town.

Then lying about it. Then moving back here like nothing had happened and expecting people like the Stanners to just let it go.

Why couldn’t you have just been quiet about it instead of putting yourself out there in front of the whole town all the time? ”

I flapped my arms out to the side in disbelief.

“Putting myself out there? I spent the first couple of years here too scared to speak! I went to work, kept to myself, and went home to the farm. The only thing I did was work and volunteer at the library with kids. How can you imply I was somehow attracting attention or causing anyone problems?”

And why was I arguing with a madman? Did it matter? I was trying to use logic with someone who had literally poisoned me.

Barney must have seen the fear on my face as soon as I remembered how high the stakes were.

“You must think I’m stupid, Truman,” he said calmly, stepping closer.

“I’m not. I’m actually quite smart. I know more than you think, including how to read about emetic compounds from your aunt’s notebook.

Including how to place the same accelerant I used at your shop in the middle of a shed full of silly costumes and take care of them once and for all. ”

I opened my mouth to scream a warning to Chaya, but Barney cut me off.

“And including cutting the wires to your security cameras before this little meeting of ours in case you tried to get me to confess any of these things on camera.”

My stomach dropped.

He knew.

I scrambled out of the rocker and bolted for the goat shed.