“Nice to know I’m your Plan B. Nothing’s changed . . .” Boone rolled down the window a few cranks even though the air conditioning was blasting through the taxi. He tilted his head toward the open window, letting the hot, sticky air break across his face. It looked like he could breathe again.
“Just let me do the talking tonight.” I rifled through my purse for a stick of gum or a breath mint or something that would disguise the tequila on my breath. “In fact, since it’s so late, most of the family will probably be asleep, so why don’t you just sneak up to my old room with the luggage? I’ll say a quick hi to everyone who’s awake, and we can deal with the big reveal at breakfast. After a good night’s sleep.”
Boone’s head reclined into the headrest, his knees moving closer together so I wasn’t getting thumped every few seconds. “Something else that hasn’t changed. Sneaking me upstairs while you distract your family. Check. Think I can manage that. Might be a little rusty, but I’ve got plenty of experience. Should come right back to me.”
“Boone—”
“It’s okay, Clara. I don’t care about that shit anymore. What I care about is the ten grand.”
When it was clear not a mint or stick of gum was to be found in the confines of my purse, I tossed it onto the cab floor in a frustrated fit. It wasn’t the purse I was upset with—it was the purse’s owner. The decisions she’d made and the consequences that had come as a result. “If we’re going to do this, successfully, we’re going to need to leave the past where it belongs.”
“Squirming on our faces?”
I groaned. “Behind us. We can’t be hashing out what happened and who’s to blame and taking jabs at each other every two seconds, or we might as well ditch this whole deal now because it won’t work. We need to focus on pretending to like, tolerate, and respect each other. We need to pretend there isn’t history between us and that all we care about is our future together.” The pep talk was just as intended for myself as it was for him. “Do you think you can do that?”
“Do you think you can?” he fired back, cranking down the window another notch.
“Yes,” I lied . . . I answered.
“Then so can I. No problem,” he lied . . . he replied.
From the front seat, the driver gave me a funny look. I shrugged in reply. I could only imagine how perverse this conversation sounded to an outsider, and even if I had the time, I wasn’t sure I could explain it.
By then though, we were pulling up to the house. The gate at the end of the driveway was operated by keypad access, but before I could tell the driver the code to enter, the gate swung open. Which meant someone was watching the security screen and had opened the gate from the house. Which meant they were waiting for us.
My heart sped up, adrenaline, or was that panic?, dripping into my bloodstream. Why was my body’s reaction to coming home the same as if I were being chased by a pack of wolves in waist-deep snow? Why was my instinct to go into survival mode when I passed through that gate? Why was my fight-or-flight response triggered whenever I passed into the borders of the estate that had been in my family for five generations?
Those were questions I’d been asking myself for years. Questions that had remained unanswered for years.
My hands wrung in my lap, my legs bounced out of control, and my teeth chewed out the excess adrenaline on my lower lip.
Out of nowhere, Boone’s hand appeared in my lap, weaving between mine until he had one in his grasp. His large hand swallowed mine, giving it a gentle squeeze. “It will be okay, Clara. They can’t ruin your life twice.”
Something inside me stilled. Boone’s hand was still rough and dotted with callouses. It was still warm and solid though, anchoring me before I drifted away.
“That won’t stop them from trying,” I whispered as I could just start to make out the large plantation house in the distance.
Boone’s jaw tightened. “Well, I won’t let them ruin my life twice.”
“It won’t stop them from trying.”
As we continued to wind up the driveway, the driver gave a low whistle. “This your home, miss?”
“No, this isn’t my home,” I answered. “This is my family’s home. Not mine.”
“This is some place,” the driver continued. “Your family must be real well off.”
I closed my eyes when the house came into full view. Too much, too fast. Boone beside me, that house in front of me, all of the family waiting to lash out in their passive-aggressive way. Why had I come?
“If only by their bank accounts’ standards,” I said as I retrieved my purse from the floorboard and got back to digging through it madly, desperate for a mint and a means of distraction.
“Here.” Boone’s other hand reached across our laps. In it was a white round mint.
I froze for two moments, that chalky alabaster mint bringing on another enclave of memories. These ones though, they were good. All of them.