“Why is he even in town?” Norah asked.
“Maybe he wants to see Cam?” Cecily suggested. She seemed the least blood-thirsty of the group.
“He hasn’t bothered with that since I was sixteen.” Trey could hear the hurt and resentment beneath the flat, matter-of-fact words and knew exactly why Sandy had chosen to handle Waylan herself.
“Maybe he’s here for the wedding?” Liz suggested.
“I don’t know how he’d know,” Sandy said. ?
??We certainly didn’t invite him.”
“It’s been all over Facebook. He’s bound to still be friends with somebody here,” Norah pointed out.
“Why did he come back before?” Trey asked, proud that his tone came out as conversational instead of a roar.
The color was back in Sandy’s cheeks, though whether it was from embarrassment or temper, Trey couldn’t say. She shrugged. “It’s always the same. He wants money because he’s blown what he has in pursuit of the next big thing. I never give it, and he slinks back off to whatever hole he came from. He’ll do the same this time.”
Something didn’t feel right about that, apart from the utter wrongness of the fact that he’d come back to the woman he left practically destitute and asked for more. But Trey filed that away to deal with later. “He’s easily dealt with.”
Her gaze snapped to his. “Don’t. I’ll handle it.”
Trey rose from his seat and prowled over to her. “Like you handled it thirty years ago?”
Temper flared in those hazel eyes and a muscle jumped in her jaw. “I did what I thought was best.”
“You were wrong.” This wasn’t the time or place for this conversation, but Trey couldn’t seem to stop the words. “You were wrong then, and you’re wrong now. This pacifistic, path of least disruption isn’t the way to deal with a threat, as evidenced by the fact that he keeps coming back.”
She rolled her eyes. “He’s not a threat. He’s an annoyance. You going off half-cocked makes him more important than he is. Just let it go.”
Let it go? Was she insane?
“No. You don’t get to ask that of me. Not again. Not now.” He took a step closer, reaching out to cup her cheek, brushing a thumb over the shadow his memory clearly cast on her face. “Do you think I’ve forgotten?”
She sighed, a mix of exasperation and disbelief. “It’s been thirty years.”
And he remembered like it was yesterday. “There is no statute of limitations on an ass kicking for striking a woman.”
Everyone started talking at once, shouting in outrage, making demands. Obviously, that was a detail her close-knit family hadn’t known. Sandy just closed her eyes and turned away from him, stepping away from his touch.
It felt like a slap, another rejection of his protection and his right to look out for her.
A piercing whistle cut through the clamor. Norah. “Let’s everybody calm down.”
“I will calm down when someone explains what the hell is going on.” Pete turned a glare on Trey. “There is clearly more to your relationship with my sister than either of you have let on.”
If only you knew.
Trey stayed silent, leaving Sandy to answer.
But it was Norah who fielded the question. “They went to college together.” She looked at Trey, apologetic. “I figured it out months ago.”
It didn’t surprise him. She was an exceptionally smart woman, and there couldn’t have been that many married college freshmen from Wishful at Ole Miss at that time. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
She shrugged. “I figured if you wanted to reconnect, you would. Took you long enough.”
He wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole.
“In the version of the story you told me, you said her husband had never been violent.” There was censure in Norah’s tone.