Tangle (Dogwood Lane 2)

I lean forward, my elbows on my knees. “I’m confused.”

She laughs. “Oh, honey. There’s nothing to be confused about. We got married when we were twenty at the courthouse. My daddy didn’t like him, so he wouldn’t come. But Mama did, and his parents, and we said our vows in front of the good Lord. We didn’t have fancy weddings back then like they do now. But it wasn’t about that back then. It was just about finding the person to hold on to when the storms got bad because, back then, they got bad in a hurry.”

Her needles fly against each other, picking up speed.

“We battled through a war, three kids, hard times and easy ones. He was the great love of my life, and I’ll never say a bad word about him.” She looks up at me with a half smile. “Except he’s a dumbass for divorcing me.” She drops her needles. “At seventy years old. Who does that?”

“Yeah. I’m not sure.” I make a face. “Did he get remarried? I mean, the guy had to have a reason, right?”

“Oh, he had one. He said he never got to experience life without me and wanted that chance before he died. I blame the doctor, to be honest. Had him convinced he had cancer, and of course, he didn’t.” She blows out a breath. “You can’t trust a doctor these days, Trevor. They’re all about the money.”

“Okay.”

I shake my head, trying not to laugh, because I know she’s serious. Not laughing is easier than I expect it to be because I realize I have no humor in me. All I have is a place where I used to be happy.

Damn it.

“So what’s going on with you, hon? You’ve walked in here every day since the day you came and got a room and been the most pleasant, happy man. Today you look like you want to be anywhere but here. And by here, I mean anywhere but inside your skin.”

I roll that observation around. Anywhere but inside your skin. I sigh and hope she’s wrong. Otherwise, I’ll go back to Nashville and still feel like I left a part of myself here in this quaint little town that my poodle-loving stepmother led me to.

A grin ghosts my lips as I realize I didn’t just think of her as my dad’s wife, but as my stepmother.

I really am losing my damn mind.

“I had to make some tough decisions today,” I say.

“Mm-hmm.”

“And I don’t really like having to make the ones that make me feel like this.”

“First things first: you don’t have to do anything but die and pay taxes. I’m assuming you’re up to date with Uncle Sam.”

I nod.

“And you’re clearly alive. So that’s kind of a bit of a fib you’re telling right there, Trevor.”

“That’s a cute little ditty, but there’s more you have to do in life, Lorene.”

She sets her needles down. “Like what?”

“Like . . .” It shouldn’t be as hard to come up with a list of things you have to do. There are a lot of things. “Like doing what is right.”

She scoffs. “That’s subjective. Life is not black and white, and it’s not even black to everyone. Sometimes I’ll see something as black and you’ll see it white. Doesn’t make it any less black to me because you don’t see it that way.”

“Right and wrong is pretty straightforward.”

“Ha.”

“I mean it,” I say. “Generally speaking, most things that are right are right and wrong are wrong. There are exceptions, sure, but more or less it’s not up for debate.”

She raises a brow that looks like she stenciled it with a crayon. “So did you harm a child?”

“Of course not.”

“Did you hurt an animal?”

“Really, Lorene?”

“Did you lie to someone’s face to cause them harm? Because sometimes you have to tell a little white lie. I know people say you don’t, but you do.”

I shake my head. “I didn’t.”

“Then the only other thing you could’ve done that would’ve been unequivocally wrong is taking something that wasn’t yours.”

Thief.

“Trevor?”

“I had to break it off with a girl today,” I say softly. “A girl I care a lot about.”

My face falls. I avoid her eyes and look at the floor. The edges of the rug are a whiskey color, and they remind me of the flecks of gold in Haley’s eyes.

“You had to, huh?” Lorene asks.

“Yeah. I had to.”

“Oh. Okay.” She takes off again in her rocking chair, her needles clashing together in a quick tempo.

I wait for her to say something more, to ask me for details, to pressure me into spilling my guts, because I fucking need to. But she doesn’t.

“I expected more from you.” That simple one-liner slams into my chest with the force of a wrecking ball.

“What?”

“You’ve been the biggest help to me while you’ve been here. I was telling my friends at the salon on Saturday morning how I’d be as proud as a peacock if you were my grandson.” She sighs sadly. “And to hear you say you did something you aren’t proud of because you had to . . . I know you, boy. No one makes you do anything.”