“Exactly.”
“Anyway, since you asked, I don’t know the Thorne girls well. Never really ran in the same crowds, you know? But from what I can tell from what I’ve heard people sayin’, the older sisters are known for having sticks up their asses.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, when their mom died about six years ago, their dad struggled for a while and Willow took the brunt of helping him pull through. Word is, Jon got sick recently. Don’t know any of the details or what with, but apparently, those two can’t be bothered to help; so again, the responsibility falls on Willow’s shoulders.
“So, what you’re sayin’ is her sisters are bitches.”
“Yup. And stuck up too. But that’s always been the case with those two. Don’t know how someone like Willow can share blood with two chicks so totally different than her in every way.” He paused, arching an eyebrow, too damn smug for his own good. “But that’s not your problem, right? Because you don’t do relationships.”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “That’s right.”
“All right, bro.” He clapped me on the back again. “Then I’ll let you get to it.”
I did just that, going about my job like it was any other day.
The whole time trying to convince myself that Willow Thorne and her avalanche of problems were none of my damn business.
Problem was, I knew I was full of shit.
Chapter Four
Willow
I limped up the walkway and stuck my key in the lock, only to discover the door was already unlocked. I told him all the time to be sure to lock his doors, even when he was home. Most of the time he forgot, other times he just couldn’t be bothered. Letting out a sigh, I pushed the door open and stepped inside the house, calling out, “Hey, Dad. It’s me.”
I kicked off my shoes and lined them up inside the door out of habit. Back when she was alive, my mother had been a bit of an obsessive cleaner, always dusting and mopping and vacuuming no matter how clean the house already was. She’d been a stickler when it came to wearing shoes in the house, and although my dad didn’t have an issue with shoes on the carpet, it had been ingrained in me from an early age to take them off any time I came to visit.
“Dad?” I called again when he didn’t answer. I made my way deeper into the house, fear clutching my chest when I heard nothing back from him. Used to be I wouldn’t think twice about it, but lately I tended to fear the worst.
Turning into the kitchen, I spotted an un-manned saucepan sitting on a front burner of the gas stovetop, the dial turned up as high as it could go, spitting bright orange flames along the sides of the small pot. Whatever was inside was burnt and boiling over, making the flames hiss and spark angrily.
I rushed over and shut off the gas, pulling the pan off the stove and carrying it to the sink to dump the contents and run it under the water.
“Dad!” I called a little more frantically. “Where are you?”
I heard his loud, booming voice coming from upstairs. “Colleen, honey, get up here! We’ve been robbed!”
After the day I had, I’d really hoped I could come here and relax with my father, enjoy dinner, and watch some television with him. My whole body hurt from that humiliating tumble I took out of the tow truck earlier that morning. I’d done my best to play it off in front of the guys, refusing to limp or show pain, but I was pretty sure my hip was double the size it was supposed to be, and I had a feeling that when I took off my clothes, my body would look like a Jackson Pollock painting of black and blue bruises.
Then there was the conversation I’d had with my oldest sister, Elaina, when I called her on my lunch break to ask for a ride home after work.
As soon as the call connected, her voice came through the line with an air of annoyance that was becoming commonplace whenever I called her.
“Hey, Willow. Listen, now’s not really a good time.”
It seemed like, more and more lately, it was never a good time to talk to my oldest sister.
“I know. I’m sorry, but I’m in a bind. My car completely died on me this morning when I was leaving for work. I got a ride in earlier, but I don’t have any way home. Would you mind coming to get me this evening?”
She let out a harried sigh. “I can’t, Willow. I’ve already had a busy day and I still need to hit the grocery store and dry cleaner before my Pilates class. I don’t have time.”
“Couldn’t you skip Pilates just this once? I could really use your help.”
“Sorry, but I can’t. With it being so last minute, they’d still charge me, and I can’t just flush money down the drain like that.”
That tightness I’d felt in my chest this morning when everything started to snowball into an avalanche of crap had returned. Squeezing my eyes closed, I filled my lungs slowly, swallowing down the knot of emotion that was suddenly causing my throat to swell up. My morning had been bad enough, the last thing I needed was to start bawling like a baby in the middle of the office for everyone to see.
“Elaina—”
“Look, I have to go. I’m in the middle of the cereal aisle right now and can’t talk. Just call an Uber or something.” With a rapid-fire, “loveyoubye,” she disconnected the call, leaving me flustered, irritated, and dangerously close to tears.
The saving grace had come when Lark came out of her office to invite me to lunch a few minutes later and saw the red splotches on my face that always came when I was close to crying. I was a seriously ugly crier. She hadn’t let up until I told her what was wrong, then, after calling my sister a few choice words—I hadn’t minded, she’d pissed me off—she informed me she’d give me a ride home.
It had definitely been the worst day in a years-long streak of underwhelming days, and as I took the stairs up to my dad’s bedroom, the anxiety clutching at me grew worse with each step.
When he’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a few months ago, it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I’d been a daddy’s girl all my life. Growing up, he’d been the only one in my family who’d gotten me. He’d accepted me for exactly who I was and never once made me feel lacking or tried to get me to change or to be something I wasn’t.
My mom, God rest her soul, hadn’t been able to understand why I was the way I was. She’d tried to “coax me out of my shell” on multiple occasions, all but forcing me to be social with other kids I barely knew. It had blown up in her face every time, until finally, Dad put his foot down and demanded she just let me be me.
There was one particular conversation I’d overheard back when I was in high school that stuck with me to this day.
I’d woken up late one night to go to the bathroom and heard their low voices creeping through the crack in their partially closed bedroom door. I’d been prepared to backtrack and return to bed until I heard my mom say my name.
“I just don’t understand it, Jon. Why can’t she be more like Elaina and Crissy?”
“Because she’s not Elaina or Crissy, Colleen,” my father had clipped in irritation. “She’s our Willow, and just because she’s different doesn’t make her any less special.”