“Yeah.” She breathes out. “And then the next thing I knew you were on the ground with a huge gash in your head. Blood was spilling out all over the place and I was holding a candlestick. I don’t know how it happened. And I tried to tell this to you that one summer we spent all our time gardening. Remember?”
“Of course I remember. I’m the one who told you to plant those damn daphne bushes.”
“Yeah.” She inhales deeply, then lets it out slowly. “I don’t like to think about it.”
“Me either. So we don’t need to talk about it. I know you didn’t mean to kill me.”
“I don’t know how you can even think that, Adam. Because I tried to kill you again just a few years later. And…” She stops again.
“Indie,” I say, bringing my hands down so I can place them on her shoulders. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is.”
I shake her a little. “Listen to me, OK? Because this is important. It’s not your fault, kid. It’s just not. They did things to you, Indie. Terrible, evil things. And they fucked you up long before you showed up in that auction. And by that time, there was nothing any of us could’ve done to change it.”
Her face falls into a deep frown. “Oh.” She sounds sad.
“OK, wait. Let me say that again, in a different way. Because that’s not really what I meant. They did things to you. They changed you. And then McKay, and Donovan, and I did our best to… take it back and make it right.”
“It just wasn’t good enough, was it?”
I lift my head up a little to see her better. “It was good enough. We’re still here, right?”
“Yeah.” She doesn’t sound convinced.
“We changed you back a little. You’re much better now, Indie. You learned a lot of truth over the past few months and you’re dealing with it really well.”
She nods and sinks a little deeper into my chest.
I want to hug her. I want to hold her and tell her everything’s gonna be OK. But she scares me.
And it’s not about how dangerous she is. Or if she’ll snap one day and succeed in killing me. All of us, really. It’s just we’re really, really far away from being OK.
“Do you love Maggie more than me?”
I laugh. “Why the hell would you ask me that?”
“Because you act like she’s yours.”
“You’re mine too.”
“It’s different.”
“How?”
She takes yet another deep breath. “I don’t know. It just is. The two of you are a team. Everyone sees it.”
“Yeah. We are. And I’m real sorry about that, kid. Because I didn’t take her away on purpose. I just didn’t know what to do once I knew she was gonna recover. McKay thinks I just up and left, but that’s not how it happened. I didn’t have a phone, or my wallet, or anything. I was still a little fucked up from the drugs. And I was worried. I was very fucking worried. I wasn’t thinking about anyone but Maggie. And the day just slipped by without me noticing. Then suddenly it was two days later, and Maggie was out of danger, and I needed to go home. But I didn’t come here. I went to the house in the French Quarter. I didn’t know what to do. My head had cleared and I didn’t know you were gone. If I had known you were gone, I’d have come back for McKay and then Donovan would’ve eventually shown back up too. And we’d have figured shit out differently.”
“But that’s not how it went.”
“No. That’s not how it went. So I just… took her. I didn’t know what to do. I just thought it was better if we hid out. So that’s what we did.”
“Hid out.” She sighs. “From me.”
I want to take that back and make her feel better about it. But it’s true. We were hiding from her.
“It wasn’t just you I was hiding from, Indie Anna. I didn’t know Carter was behind that day. Not right away. I had a list of people it could’ve been.”
“A whole list?” She looks up at me.
“It was a short list. Carter wasn’t even on it. It took a while for his name to come up. But I run hundreds of dangerous men, Indie. It’s not a big leap to figure one of them was trying to take me out.”
She’s quiet for a little bit. And I get a little lost in the past, thinking back on those first days. “I was trying to make sense of things, Indie. I was wishing so hard that my father was still around. And then, out of nowhere, it hit me that I had killed him.”
“You didn’t kill him. I’m pretty sure that was Sasha Cherlin.”
“Maybe she did do it. Or someone she was with did it. But I helped her get to that Company resort in Santa Barbara. I put her there. And I only did that for one reason and that was so she could… clean it all up. Do the dirty work. I feel a lot more shame about that than I do about my father dying.”
Indie turns her head so she can meet my eyes. “You do?”
I nod. “I do. I don’t like who I am most of the time.”
She pushes herself up now, bracing her hands flat on my chest so she can look me in the eyes properly. “You’re not a bad guy.”
“Says you.”
“You’re not. You saved my life so many times.”
“I used you.”
“You saved me. You saved me from that snake.”
“Shit. There were half a dozen men from all around the world trying to outbid me that night. You were never in any danger from that snake.”
“Yeah, but who were they, Adam? Who were all those people who wanted to buy me?”
“I don’t know. They were calling in bids. They weren’t there in person.”
“They would’ve used me differently, Adam. We both know that. So no. I’m not gonna hate you. Not for any of it. You did save me. It took me a really long time to understand that, but I do now.”
“All right. I’m not gonna fight you over that. I know when to pick and choose my battles.”
She grins at me and then settles back down on my chest.
This time I hug her. And she slips her hands under my arms until I can feel the tips of her fingers pressing against my shoulder blades.
She sighs. “What do you think they did to me? Before I came here?”
“I don’t know. I have no idea who had you before the island. And I’ve looked, girl. I’ve looked pretty hard. There’s no record of you.”
“Do you think Donovan’s grandfather knew?”
“Yes. One hundred fucking percent.”
“Do you think Donovan knows?”
“He better not. I’ll kill that fucker with my bare hands if I find out he’s been keeping that secret.”
“But wouldn’t he have gotten all the files when he inherited the estate?”
I know the answer to this. It’s always bothered me too. But I don’t want Indie thinking about the past. I just want her focused on the future. So I change the subject. “What did Donovan want with McKay?”
“Oh.” She laughs a little, then squirms in my embrace and props her chin on my chest as she smiles at me. “He’s gonna flirt with him.”