There was a long silence and then, “I’m glad.”
“I think Kerrie needs to rot in hell for what my gut is telling me he did,” I said.
A couple of days ago, I’d been over at Delanie’s house cleaning out her dogs’ kennels when I’d kind of just… snapped.
I’d told Dillan to look at the bigger picture. To ask herself the question of why.
The night that Asa was conceived, I remembered very clearly that Booth had been half in love with Dillan. Delanie didn’t even register in his eyes. So it made zero sense to me that Booth and Delanie would sleep together. Especially knowing the way my brother felt when it came to Dillan.
I just knew, with one hundred percent certainty, that something more had happened that night than just a case of ‘she was there and I needed it’ kind of thing.
I knew, without a doubt, that Kerrie, Dillan and Delanie’s friend, had something to do with it.
I hadn’t ever been able to prove it, but it’d been a hunch ever since things had gone down.
“He will,” she said softly. “I just… Kilgore is such a gossip town. With my new business, and Dillan’s business, and both you and Booth being on the police force… I just don’t think now is the time to press those charges.”
I didn’t like that answer.
Honestly, I wanted her to go up to the police department and file a report.
It wouldn’t go anywhere… but at least there would be a file. And if Kerrie ever stepped out of line…
“Why would your dad arrange a marriage for you?” I asked into the darkness.
The night that it’d happened, I’d learned from Booth that Delanie’s father had arranged a marriage between Kerrie and Delanie. Thinking back now, her drinking made sense. That would be something I would want to avoid at all costs, too.
But I didn’t think that she’d sabotage her life, and definitely not with her twin and Booth obviously in love with each other, quite like that. And, if she was going to do that, she definitely wouldn’t have done it with Booth. Neither one of them had ever been able to hide their feelings for each other.
“We came from a long line of arranged marriages,” she said. “Political, really. If you want to run for office, you need to have someone in your corner that is just as distinguished as you are. I was, apparently, it for Kerrie. I’m not going to say that it ever made sense to my young brain, and even to my now older brain, it still doesn’t make sense. But, Asa saved me. That’d never been my intention, but he did. I’ll never have to worry about it again.”
“I thought you didn’t talk to your father,” I said. “He would never be able to do that to you again.”
Thank God.
I really didn’t like David Gunnarson. He was a manipulative asshole who didn’t deserve Delanie. Not at all.
“I don’t,” she agreed. “I haven’t spoken to him in years.”
Something in the way she said that made me hone in on her words.
“That sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming,” I said.
She snorted. “He contacted me last week.”
I blinked.
“Why?” I asked.
“He said he’d reinstate my inheritance if he could see Asa,” she said. “I told him to go take a flying leap off the closest building, because he wouldn’t be able to see Asa ever. Over my dead body.”
Her words made me shiver.
Over her ‘dead body’ made me slightly ill.
Just thinking about her no longer being on this Earth, even if she didn’t talk to me at all, made my heart hammer inside of my chest.
“Why does he want to see Asa?” I asked.
She snorted. “He’s probably running for office. I heard through the grapevine that he retired this year and that was why he’d decided to be done with his career. He’d always wanted to run for office. He has to be important. That’s his life’s goal. To be something. First it was the son of a prime minister. Then it was the distinguished soldier. The Army general. The five star. Now it’s as a public official, I’m sure.”
“Meaning, he can’t have anyone thinking that he has an estranged family?” I guessed.
“One and the same,” she said. “Dillan doesn’t know any of this, so please don’t tell her.”
“I won’t.” I paused. “But why keep this from her?”
She fiddled with her bracelet and hesitated before saying, “I just don’t want her to know. I’ve already had to rely on her for years when it came to her talking to our father. Did you know that she shared her inheritance with me? She funded my business? She helped me go to school. God, she’s done so much when it comes to my life. I’m honestly tired of having to lean on her for support. I feel like a leech. Not to mention… I just don’t want to involve her in it anymore. I don’t want her to worry. It’s time for her to focus on her, not on me.”