Butterfly Bayou (Butterfly Bayou 1)

He held a hand up. “I’m not going to listen to this crap. She’s a nice young lady. And she doesn’t have to fight for herself because I’m here to fight for her.”

“But you’re not.” Anger started to thrum through her. He’d been an illusion. If he wilted because they’d had one damn fight, they would never have worked. She was difficult. She knew that, but she’d thought he was the one man in the world who might stand beside her. “You’re not fighting for her at all. You’re sheltering her, and you’ll do it until she can’t have a life, and the crazy thing is, you won’t, either.”

A single brow rose over his eyes. “Oh, because I won’t let her put up with your abuse, I can’t have a life?”

“You’re stuck in that moment, too. You can’t forgive yourself for not being in that car with her.” She knew he wouldn’t listen to her, but she couldn’t stop talking. She loved him. She probably wouldn’t love anyone else the way she loved him, but she also knew when a man was done with her. “It wasn’t your fault, but this part is. You are her father. You have to protect her. Even from herself. I’ll send someone by to get my stuff. Not that there’s much of it.”

“You could apologize.” He took a deep breath and seemed to come to some resolution. “You could apologize to Noelle and then maybe we could work something out.”

And the next time she made a wrong move? Would she spend the rest of her life apologizing? “The trouble is I don’t think I was wrong and I never will. Not about this. Good-bye, Armie.”

She walked out, turning to the hallway that led to the parking lot. She could barely see for the tears in her eyes. She’d held them off until now.

Noelle was sitting there. She was a mess, her mascara dripping across her cheeks. “Lila, I’m . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that to you and Dad.”

This really wasn’t her fault. She sank down to the bench beside Noelle’s wheelchair because she didn’t want to loom over her. What she had to say needed to be said eye-to-eye. “I know, sweetie. I want you to think about this. You are enough. You are enough to get up and fight through and walk. You are the only one making yourself small. If you need me, you know where to find me.”

Armie stood in the doorway.

She got to her feet and walked away, feeling his eyes on her the whole way.

When she got to her car, she forced the tears back and drove toward the only place she had left to go.chapter fifteen“Hey, I brought you some tea.” Lisa stepped into the small apartment over Guidry’s that would serve as her temporary home.

“Thank you.” She’d held it together for hours, something she’d learned after years of working in trauma. Her own trauma could wait. Although when she thought about it, maybe she’d learned it in childhood.

Peanut looked up from his place beside her. The dog seemed to know something terrible had happened and he’d stayed close to her.

Lisa sat at the end of the bed, a worried look on her face. “I wish you would come to the house and stay there. I want to take care of you.”

Being taken care of was what had gotten her here in the first place. She’d fallen into the softest, sweetest of all traps, the one that seemed like heaven. But this afternoon that trap had sprung, and she’d been broken by it. She’d managed to crawl away, but she feared she’d left a big old chunk of herself back in that house where she’d briefly been happy. “I’m fine. It didn’t work out. We moved way too fast.”

That was what she was telling everyone who asked. It had been a mistake to move in together.

What would Armie say? Would he put it around town that she’d abused his daughter? Would he trash her reputation to get her to leave? She would have said no, but then, she hadn’t realized how far he would go to protect Noelle and himself. He’d found a place after trauma where he was comfortable and life seemed okay, and she was threatening that.

“No, you didn’t. What happened?” Lisa’s shrewd eyes pinned her. “I won’t go away until you tell me. You know how tenacious I can be. It’s all you’ll hear for the next few weeks. ‘What’s wrong, Lila? How can I help, Lila?’” She touched her chest and gave her a shocked expression. “‘Oh my, did I do something wrong, Lila?’ Now that is a manipulation because I know damn well I didn’t do anything wrong, but it’s going to annoy you so I’ll go there.”

This was what sisters did. They poked and prodded and didn’t care about personal boundaries when they meant well. This was what she’d tried to do with Noelle because she knew it was what any of her siblings would have done for her.