Page 88 of Winter's End

“What would it take for you to turn on the men you love?”

My heart sunk from my chest into my stomach. Nothing. Short of cold-blooded murder, and maybe even that, there was nothing my men could do to make me turn them in, regardless of the consequences.

Suddenly, I understood my mother, just a bit more. The position she had been put in with Dad’s omissions of truth, the risk she’d taken to move to an entirely new place, and the loneliness she might have tried to fill with no other family to rely on.

I had only wished she had filled that loneliness with me, instead of her career and the weight of her secrets.

The server cleared our table long before we moved to leave. We sat beneath the dense fog of our own choices in a pensive silence.

I only spoke up once we were walking out to Mom’s car.

“Thanks for telling me this side of the story, Mom. It’s … clarified a few things.”

Her mouth molded into a melancholy frown. “I’m sorry it has come to this, baby girl. I hope there will be redemption some day for your father and I. But you, you have a whole life ahead of you.”

Following those ambiguous words, she drove me home with a beautiful new dress and a heart full of woe.

“I have a home in Brenton that I want you to run away to for a little while.”

Hillary made this statement casually as she flipped through a magazine while sitting on my couch.

It was laughable, really, her elegant posture sitting among my colorful bohemian pillows and my macrame hanging potted plants; but she hadn’t stuck her nose up to complain about my meager apartment.

Still, I was pretty sure her outfit cost more than all of my furniture combined.

“Run away to? I have a life here, Hill. And a job, and?—”

“Yes, yes, I know, Winter.” Hillary waved her hand dismissively without taking her eyes off the page. “But you need to have an escape plan. And I’m providing one for you.”

“In the form of an empty house?”

I raised my eyebrows and plopped down on the cushion beside her, finally diverting her attention fromCosmo’seducational piece on ‘How to Make a Good Boy Turn Bad.’

“No, it’s furnished,” she stated matter-of-factly, not taking my bait. “And far out of Georgio’s sight line. You and your harem keep getting more roped into this situation, and I don’t like it.”

“You and me both.” I sighed, overwhelmed by the many revelations we’d uncovered over the last several weeks. “Kellan keeps reassuring us it’ll all be over soon, but I have a hard time believing it.”

She perked up at the mention of the particularly hot, blond Viking god.

“That man is a woman’s walking wet dream.” She bit her lip and waggled her eyebrows suggestively. Then she shrugged, her attention moving back to the riveting and informative piece of literature that wasCosmopolitan. “I’d spin on his cock if he let me.”

I choked on my laughter. “Yeah,” I sputtered, “he’s worth the whirl.”

“So, back to the house idea.” Hillary was nothing if not a relentless, perky pit-bull. “I’m going to give you the address and a passcode, okay?”

“Sure, Hill. Give me the address and the passcode.” I wouldn’t argue the point further. She would win anyway, so it was better just to roll over and play dead.

Her gaze snapped up to mine, and the veil of seriousness that covered her icy blues surprised me. “I mean it, Winter. Please take your safety seriously. I may not be there to protect you when the time comes.”

This powerhouse of a woman had a fierce love, and she protected her own even more fiercely. I wasn’t good at showing her how grateful I was to have her in my life, and I was going to change that.

Pushing aside the God-awful magazine Quick had bought me at the gas station as a joke, I took her hands in mine.

She quirked a brow in confusion.

“Hill, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I’m sorry if I don’t show it enough.”

She squirmed awkwardly under my sincere stare, but she didn’t pull away.