Pining For You (Jasper Falls 4)

Her face darkened and she snarled, “Get out of this house before I call the police and have you removed!”

“I’m not leaving without my things.”

She withdrew her phone from her pocket with a shaky hand. “I’m calling the cops.”

The kitchen door opened and Addison appeared, soda spilled down her front and soaking her pajama top. “I spilled.”

Erin snapped. “Goddamn it! I told you not to shake the cans!” The woman marched angrily toward Addison, and Skylar bolted ahead of her, blocking her path.

“Just who do you think you’re talking to?” Skylar’s entire presence seemed to swell to the size of a momma bear, claws extended and ready to protect her cub. “You don’t speak to children like that. And if you were watching her, she wouldn’t have had an accident.”

“Get out of this house! You’re fired!”

“Back off!” Skylar jutted her body forward, causing the woman to stagger back.

Erin looked unstable and ready to strike Addison—or her.

Skylar’s jaw hardened and she scowled right into the other woman’s eyes. “You can’t fire me. And there’s no need for the cops. I’ll leave. But I’m taking Addison with me. When Rhett comes back, tell him he can find us at my grandparents’ house on the mountain.”

“You can’t take her! I’m calling the police.”

“Go ahead. Let them get involved. The first call they make will be to her father, and whose side do you think he’ll take?”

Forgetting her personal belongings upstairs, Skylar hoisted Addison onto her hip and grabbed her coat off the hook in the foyer. As she opened the door, she turned back and said, “And if I were you, I’d start looking for a new job.”

“You can’t fire me,” Erin snapped, throwing her words back at her.

Skylar looked at her with absolute pity. “I won’t have to.” She shut the door.

21

Rhett signed the last of the paperwork and listened to the familiar spiel about the care Adel would be given and the programs she’d endure. He’d been on this ride several times before. It would work for a while, but eventually, she’d be on her own again.

Like before, she’d pick up new friends from rehab, friends with similar problems and familiar demons. They’d keep each other strong for a while but, soon, those old habits would return.

She’d either find the strength to cut ties, stick to the meds and behavioral therapy the doctor recommended, or she’d go down with the rest of them. But only she could decide her future.

It didn’t matter how many friends Adel watched die or how many times she brushed shoulders with death herself. She’d sell her body, her dignity, and her soul to the devil himself, if she wanted to get high bad enough.

And the heartbreaking truth of who she’d become would be inescapable when she came back to herself again, sick with regret, hysterical and suicidal. That’s how she sounded when she called him, begging for Rhett to come save her and put her somewhere safe.

He’d spent years trying to do right by her. Not because he loved her. He never had. But because she was Addison’s mother and, despite not knowing her, one day Addison may want to meet the woman who gave birth to her.

He’d do everything he could to keep her alive until then, but sometimes survival was ugly, especially when a person’s demons overtook a life so completely it hardly resembled living anymore. He wished he could kill the beast that haunted her, but as with his mother, he was as powerless against her addictions as she was. Addiction distorted love, twisting it into something unrecognizable and broken.

If he could get her help, and if she stuck with a program, she might actually have a fighting chance. The bipolar disorder was manageable, but only when she was clean because only then did she love herself enough to do the work.

He didn’t have much faith that this time would end any differently than the last. Erin told him to stop bailing her out of trouble. She swore that was the only way people like Adel would learn. But Adel was Addison’s mother and he couldn’t give up on her.

Adel wasn’t like his mother. In rare moments of clearheaded sobriety, she asked about Addison and thanked him for taking care of their daughter. Beyond her gratitude hid a world of remorse. Adel wanted to be a decent mom, but she continuously fell short. She’d once told him the best thing she did for their child was give him sole custody.

Adel asked about Addison, where his mother only ever acknowledged him with cold indifference. He thought of Skylar and how good she was with children, how selfless and considerate she could be of others. So often, people who grew up in nurturing homes forgot that love and affection were not always a given. Skylar didn’t realize the gifts she had, or how lucky he considered himself and Addy that they were able to reap her endless affection for a short time.