“Over what?” Sharilyn asked.
“Wasn’t important.”
“Wynne wouldn’t have been so mad if it wasn’t important,” Sharilyn said.
Riley sighed. “Fine. On that particular occasion, she’d called us poor white trash one too many times for Wynne’s taste.” She’d also implied that Riley’s mother was sleeping with the pastor to receive preferential treatment among the church’s charity cases. But Riley wasn’t about to admit that. “It was a long running thing. Amber and her sister bullied me from about fourth grade on, always making sly, catty comments designed for maximum humiliation.” This many years later, she could still feel the burn of shame.
Sharilyn clutched at her pearls. “But…Mary Ellen Hopper was the one who organized the fund-raiser so we didn’t lose the house.”
Yeah, Riley had heard plenty about that, too. That had been the year she’d taken over all the money management and turned her babysitting into a profitable enough enterprise to keep the wolf from the door.
“The whole family is a bunch of self-important, sanctimonious assholes. The kind of ‘Christians’ who do very public good works to be seen doing them, so that they get credit for it, not because they have a shred of actual decency or give a damn about helping others. Every single hand up they gave came with a price tag. And they never, ever missed an opportunity to remind me that they were better. The Hoppers and people like them are the primary reason you have to practically hold a gun to my head to get me to accept help. Because I refuse to ever be made to feel like less or that I didn’t earn what’s mine, ever again.”
The moment the words were out, Riley wished she could take them back. The relief of having finally admitted it wasn’t worth the anguish on Sharilyn’s face pale.
“I had no idea. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Because I was the one who did the protecting. Riley shrugged. “You had enough to cope with.” And she hadn’t managed that particularly well. “There was nothing you could do about it. There’s no law against people being hateful.”
“You didn’t tell me, either.” There was hurt and no little bit of temper in Liam’s eyes, though Riley knew the latter wasn’t directed at her.
“Stand down, Marine. It was a long time ago. And nothing you could’ve protected me from.”
“I could’ve done something.”
“You did. You taught me to stand on my own two feet.” She smiled in an attempt to break the tension. “Besides, there’s karmic justice. She married a guy with the last name Butts. So now she’s forevermore Amber Hopper Butts. If that’s not the Universe kicking her ass, I don’t know what is. Maybe that’s small and petty of me, but I’ll take my entertainment where I can get it.”
She stabbed the last bite of fried chicken, determined to put an end to the discussion. “Did I hear a rumor about cobbler?”
~*~
“Liam! Riley!”
Liam tightened his arm around Riley’s shoulders and kept his voice low. “Don’t make eye contact. First rule of traversing enemy territory—keep moving and don’t draw attention to yourself.”
“Enemy territory?”
“Getting cornered by the Casserole Patrol this close to the start of the fireworks means we’d be guaranteed to miss the show.”
Her arm snaked around his waist and she leaned into him. “My big bad Marine is afraid of three elderly ladies?”
“Three busy bodies, more like. If they manage to pin us down for a conversation, they’ll have an engagement announcement in tomorrow’s paper and names picked out for all three of our future kids. Rumor has it, they’ve already started knitting baby stuff for Cam and Norah, and they haven’t even set a date for the wedding. No, thank you. They can interrogate us later. We’re setting up at the perimeter.”
“Lead on, Boy Scout.” He was glad to see her eyes spark with amusement. She’d been sober and withdrawn since dinner.
He steered her through the crowds, studiously ignoring everyone he could, smiling and nodding at anyone he couldn’t. But he didn’t stop until they’d reached the outskirts of the throngs encamped on the banks of Hope Springs.
Across the water, the last vestiges of daylight bled to night, only a faint blush of orange left in the sky. There were still a good forty-five minutes until the fireworks started. People milled around them, chatting, snacking on the contents of coolers brought from earlier cookouts, wrangling kids. It wasn’t how he’d planned to end the evening. His original intent had been to take her to one of his favorite haunts from high school, far on the other side of the springs, to encourage some private fireworks of their own. But in the wake of her admission about being bullied in school, she’d been too much in her own head. He could’ve distracted her with the physical, but that wouldn’t get at the thing still gnawing at her. So he’d brought her here, where an audience would keep their libidos in check, and he could, hopefully, figure out what to do to banish this demon of hers.
He unfolded the blanket he’d brought from the car and spread it on the grass. Slipping out of his shoes, he sat, stretching a hand up to Riley. “Come here.”
She toed off her sandals and stepped onto the blanket. Taking his hand, she sank gracefully down, smoothing her dress before crossing her feet primly at the ankles and settling back against his chest.
Liam wrapped his arms around her, everything inside him going quiet and content as he tucked his chin against her shoulder. “You smell…sort of lemony. What is that?”
“A blend of lemongrass and eucalyptus oils. Natural mosquito repellent.”