The Fable of Us (5 page)

My heart sped up, adrenaline, or was that panic?, dripping into my bloodstream. Why was my body’s reaction to coming home the same as if I were being chased by a pack of wolves in waist-deep snow? Why was my instinct to go into survival mode when I passed through that gate? Why was my fight-or-flight response triggered whenever I passed into the borders of the estate that had been in my family for five generations?

Those were questions I’d been asking myself for years. Questions that had remained unanswered for years.

My hands wrung in my lap, my legs bounced out of control, and my teeth chewed out the excess adrenaline on my lower lip.

Out of nowhere, Boone’s hand appeared in my lap, weaving between mine until he had one in his grasp. His large hand swallowed mine, giving it a gentle squeeze. “It will be okay, Clara. They can’t ruin your life twice.”

Something inside me stilled. Boone’s hand was still rough and dotted with callouses. It was still warm and solid though, anchoring me before I drifted away.

“That won’t stop them from trying,” I whispered as I could just start to make out the large plantation house in the distance.

Boone’s jaw tightened. “Well, I won’t let them ruin my life twice.”

“It won’t stop them from trying.”

As we continued to wind up the driveway, the driver gave a low whistle. “This your home, miss?”

“No, this isn’t my home,” I answered. “This is my family’s home. Not mine.”

“This is some place,” the driver continued. “Your family must be real well off.”

I closed my eyes when the house came into full view. Too much, too fast. Boone beside me, that house in front of me, all of the family waiting to lash out in their passive-aggressive way. Why had I come?

“If only by their bank accounts’ standards,” I said as I retrieved my purse from the floorboard and got back to digging through it madly, desperate for a mint and a means of distraction.

“Here.” Boone’s other hand reached across our laps. In it was a white round mint.

I froze for two moments, that chalky alabaster mint bringing on another enclave of memories. These ones though, they were good. All of them.

“Thank you.” I took the mint and popped it into my mouth. It wasn’t mint-flavored; it was cinnamon, spicy and hot just like I remembered. With one little mint, I was whisked back to the past: to a first kiss, to the first
real
kiss, to the first time I’d ever . . .

“Fuck me.” Boone whistled as we rolled to a stop in front of the house.

“What?” I asked, getting jettisoned from the past into the present. I preferred the other option.

“How many people are staying the week with your parents?” He craned his head out the window, focusing on something off in the distance.

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Both of my sisters obviously, probably my mom’s parents, and maybe Aunt May, but there shouldn’t be that many. That’s what hotels are for.” I was wringing the hell out of my purse straps, wishing I’d drained another shot or two, because from the feel of it, the adrenaline and nerves had burned it all up in the drive here.

“You better do a recount, Miss Abbott, because from the looks of the cars I can see parked around the carriage house, your place has become the Hotel Grand Charleston.” Boone pointed out the window, but I couldn’t see. Or maybe didn’t want to see.

The thought of dozens of family members and strangers ambling around the estate made this trip even more intolerable. The house lacked no number of rooms, but it lacked in other things. Notions like privacy, which I would need if this plan with Boone was going to fly. With dozens of people wandering the estate, that meant Boone and I would have to act the part of the loving couple around the clock, no slip-ups.

Even when we’d been together, for real together, we hadn’t been capable of that. How in the hell were we going to manage it now?

“You sure you want to do this?” Boone’s hand dropped to the door handle, looking just as ready to open it as keep it sealed shut.

I made myself look at the house. The one I’d grown up in for eighteen years until fleeing it like the devil was chasing me. I’d been back three times since, always fleeing in much the same way. Why did I keep coming back? Why did I continue to put myself through this? Oh yeah . . .

“I don’t have a choice, Boone. You of all people should remember that.”

His knuckles went white as his grip tightened on the door handle. “You’ve always got a choice. You have a choice now, and you certainly had a choice then. Don’t blame them for the choices you made.”

Here we went, mucking through the past again. This wouldn’t work. I should have sent Boone away right then. I should have paid him the ten grand just to leave, because showing up with Boone Cavanaugh as my date was going to drip a few more drops of nitroglycerin into the pot. My family wasn’t even on curt-greeting-while-passing-on-the-sidewalk status with the Cavanaughs. Boone should have been the last person I’d picked to pay to be my date this week.

But then flashes of my sister’s picture went through my head. Avalee was engaged. Charlotte was about to be married. Everyone was expecting me to show up with a date. Everyone had expected me to be the first to get married.

If I showed up alone . . . God, I didn’t want to think of the comments I’d get, or imagine the potential “suitors” my mom would line up for me. No, this was a good plan.

At least better than showing up alone.

“I’m not blaming anyone,” I said as the driver unloaded the luggage from the trunk. “I’m not blaming my parents, my sisters, you, Ford, or anyone else for anything. I’m just trying to get through this right now, so would you mind cutting me a little slack?”

His expression stayed frozen. “Does that mean we’re doing this? We’re going, willingly into a pit of vipers?”

I reached for the handle on my side. “We’re doing this.”

He sucked in a quick breath through his nose, then threw the door open. “Then let’s get started so we can finish already.”

His hand wove free of mine as he stepped outside to help the driver with the luggage. The luggage . . . there were only two pieces of it—my matching set. We had nothing to show for Boone, not even a small overnight bag.

This might have been the most ill-fated plan ever conceived.

“Boone!” I threw my door open and ejected from the backseat. “You have to hustle up to my room without being seen. We didn’t think to pick up a suitcase for you. My family won’t miss it. They’ll ask questions right from the start, and I’d prefer to delay them until at least day three or four.”

I threw my purse strap around my neck and shoulder, fishing around for my wallet to pay the driver. The fare had been steep, as in a couple hundred dollars steep, but I guessed that was what one could expect when they spent forty-five minutes camped out in some bar, drinking cheap tequila and bickering with an old flame.

The driver gave another low whistle after I handed him the bills. “Mighty generous tip, ma’am. Thank you much.”

I nodded in his direction before zeroing in on Boone, who had a piece of luggage in each hand and was starting for the stairs. “Did you hear me, Boone? They can’t see you. Not tonight.”

“Yeah, I heard you. Because I don’t have any luggage.” He paused with his foot on the bottom step. He didn’t look even a fraction hesitant about climbing the stairs to the house that had been just as responsible for eating away at him as it had me. I yearned for that kind of strength. “But who are you kidding, Clara? Your family has always lived under the impression I never had anything more to offer than the clothes on my back, so me showing up with no luggage shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.” He continued up the stairs, his boots stomping against each one like he was trying to drive his heel through them.

I rushed up beside him, grabbing his elbow when he’d stomped his way to the top stair. “Boone, please,” I said, panic sharpening my voice.

He stopped long enough to glare at the large double doors in front of us before his gaze moved my way.

“Please?”

He tried holding his glare while looking at me, but it didn’t last. A moment later, he sighed. “I won’t be your dirty little secret this time, Clara. Not again.”

My hand curved around the bend of his arm. “I know. You won’t. I’m not going to keep sneaking you in through windows or lying about who I’m out with. I promise. I just need tonight to gather my thoughts and collect my wits before they start firing questions our way.” I glanced at the doors, half expecting them to fly open before a stream of family came crashing around us. No one came though. “Okay?”

Boone stepped away from me until my hand fell from his arm. “I’ve never been able to say no to you. Why would that have changed now?”

He wasn’t looking at me like I was guilty, nor did anything in his voice hint at the same, but there had been few times in my life when I’d felt more guilt. Boone was right—I’d hidden him from my family, keeping him a secret for months. Boone had it in his head that I did that because I was ashamed of him, but the truth was I’d been ashamed of
them
. Ashamed because I knew they wouldn’t accept him. Ashamed because I knew they were the type of people who judged a man first by the size of his wallet and second by the size of his heart.

Ashamed because I knew they’d arrive at the conclusion that their daughter was too good for that nothing of a boy with a dead-end future, and I knew the truth—Boone Cavanaugh was too good for the likes of me.

“Thank you,” I whispered before I made my way up to the door.

My parents had around-the-clock staff manning all areas of the estate, and even though I knew proper protocol was to ring the doorbell and wait for the butler to open the door and welcome us inside, we were going incognito tonight.

When I tried the door handle, I found it unlocked. It was past ten o’clock, which meant my dad was just about to doze off from his third brandy of the night, and my mom was probably layering her fifth night cream onto her face before downing a sleeping pill and passing out.

So why did I feel like I was about to be pounced on?

“You remember where my room’s at?” I whispered to Boone as I opened the door as slowly and noiselessly as I could.

“Hard to forget the room of the girl I lost my—”

“Shhhh.” I lifted my finger to my lips and fired a warning look back at him.

“Yes, I remember where it is,” he said, his voice quiet once again.

“As soon as I open this door, I want you to run up those stairs and don’t stop until you’re closing my bedroom door behind you. Okay?”

His nostrils flared ever so slightly. “Whatever you say.”

Once the door was all the way open, I waved him inside, rushed in behind him, and closed the door. The foyer was empty, and other than the clocks I heard ticking in the library and living room, I didn’t hear a sound. Maybe everyone was already asleep.

“Hurry,” I whispered, motioning toward the stairs Boone was staring at like they were insurmountable.

All he did was give me a look. That look said more than any words could have. Then he lunged up the stairs, taking them two at a time like my suitcases were empty.

Once Boone had reached the top and disappeared down the hall, I rolled my neck a few times before wandering toward the kitchen. Someone was awake and around. The gate hadn’t opened itself.

The journey to the kitchen took longer than I remembered. The house had been built two hundred years ago, during a time when excess and extravagance was the thing to do for those Southern families with money and a good name. Over eight thousand square feet and with so many rooms I couldn’t recall half of them, this place might have seemed like a palace for a young girl to grow up in. For me, it had been a prison keeping me jailed from the things I wanted to do and the people I wanted to be with.

“The Abbotts had all been cut from the same cloth” was the way people around here phrased it . . . save for one soul. Me. I’d never been one of them, though I might have shared their last name. Even from the time I was a child, I’d known that. Their goals weren’t mine. Their ambitions weren’t mine. Their outlooks on the world and views of people deviated drastically from my own.

I hadn’t just been the black sheep of my family—I’d been the wolf. The very thing that threatened their existence.

At first I put up a fight when they tried to mold me into something that more closely resembled my mother and younger sisters, but after exhausting myself, I got sneakier. I played the role they wanted me to act when they were around, and I picked up the person I really was when they weren’t looking.

I’d played their game for so long though, parts of me started to become like them. It had taken me a while to recognize that, but when I did, it became a big part of why I crossed the country to get away.

A big part, though not the only one.

When I reached the kitchen, I found it just as quiet as the rest of the house. I was about to slip back into the foyer and escape up the stairs to my bedroom when I heard it. That sound had been a staple in my childhood, responsible for making me want to run in the opposite direction. Given it was my mother’s voice, I should have wanted to run toward her.

“Where is she? Where is that beautiful firstborn daughter of mine?”

The hair on the back of my neck rose on end. From the sounds of her heels echoing, she was just crossing the foyer, successfully cutting off my escape route. I was considering turning and running . . . somewhere, when my opportunity disappeared. My mom had noticed me and come to a stop in the middle of the foyer, holding that all-too-familiar smile in place like it was all that kept her anchored to the world.

Past most people’s bedtimes, my mother was still dressed in a stylish light blue skirt suit and ivory heels, her makeup looking as if it had just been applied and her jewelry sparkling as if it had just been polished. She was pristine. That was my mother in one word. Pristine . . . but that only applied to the surface layer. What resided below that wasn’t quite so flawless

“Clara Belle,” she said in that voice that held both a gentle and a sharp edge to it, making a person unable to decide whether they were being insulted or complimented. “It has been too long since we’ve seen that gorgeous face of yours around here. Get over here and give your mother a hug.” She outstretched her arms, waving her hands inward, waiting for me to come to her.