Asa? He wouldn’t care that his mom and I were together.
For Delanie? What was it helping her that I was staying away? Honestly, it was only hurting her—at least, that’s what I could feel rolling off of her each time I pushed her away.
For Dillan? For Booth? The time to make other people happy was over. It was time to make me happy.
Wasn’t it?
The bed dipped as Delanie eased onto it, and I couldn’t stop myself from looking in her direction.
Her hair was wet, and her face was lit up by her phone. She was smiling as she quickly typed something into her phone.
“Who was that?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
Though we were in the bed together, it felt like we were a thousand miles apart, and I didn’t like the feeling. Not at all.
“Dillan,” she replied softly. “She showed me a picture of her, Booth, and Asa.”
I swallowed hard, not bothering to ask to see the photo.
I could picture it in my mind.
Booth had done a lot of smiling lately since he’d finally gotten his head out of his ass when it came to Dillan.
Me? Not so much.
And that was going to change. Starting now.
“I never thought that you slept with Booth on purpose,” I found myself saying into the darkness.
There was a long silence and then, “I’m glad.”
“I think Kerrie needs to rot in hell for what my gut is telling me he did,” I said.
A couple of days ago, I’d been over at Delanie’s house cleaning out her dogs’ kennels when I’d kind of just… snapped.
I’d told Dillan to look at the bigger picture. To ask herself the question of why.
The night that Asa was conceived, I remembered very clearly that Booth had been half in love with Dillan. Delanie didn’t even register in his eyes. So it made zero sense to me that Booth and Delanie would sleep together. Especially knowing the way my brother felt when it came to Dillan.
I just knew, with one hundred percent certainty, that something more had happened that night than just a case of ‘she was there and I needed it’ kind of thing.
I knew, without a doubt, that Kerrie, Dillan and Delanie’s friend, had something to do with it.
I hadn’t ever been able to prove it, but it’d been a hunch ever since things had gone down.
“He will,” she said softly. “I just… Kilgore is such a gossip town. With my new business, and Dillan’s business, and both you and Booth being on the police force… I just don’t think now is the time to press those charges.”
I didn’t like that answer.
Honestly, I wanted her to go up to the police department and file a report.
It wouldn’t go anywhere… but at least there would be a file. And if Kerrie ever stepped out of line…
“Why would your dad arrange a marriage for you?” I asked into the darkness.
The night that it’d happened, I’d learned from Booth that Delanie’s father had arranged a marriage between Kerrie and Delanie. Thinking back now, her drinking made sense. That would be something I would want to avoid at all costs, too.
But I didn’t think that she’d sabotage her life, and definitely not with her twin and Booth obviously in love with each other, quite like that. And, if she was going to do that, she definitely wouldn’t have done it with Booth. Neither one of them had ever been able to hide their feelings for each other.
“We came from a long line of arranged marriages,” she said. “Political, really. If you want to run for office, you need to have someone in your corner that is just as distinguished as you are. I was, apparently, it for Kerrie. I’m not going to say that it ever made sense to my young brain, and even to my now older brain, it still doesn’t make sense. But, Asa saved me. That’d never been my intention, but he did. I’ll never have to worry about it again.”
“I thought you didn’t talk to your father,” I said. “He would never be able to do that to you again.”
Thank God.
I really didn’t like David Gunnarson. He was a manipulative asshole who didn’t deserve Delanie. Not at all.
“I don’t,” she agreed. “I haven’t spoken to him in years.”
Something in the way she said that made me hone in on her words.
“That sounds like there’s a ‘but’ coming,” I said.
She snorted. “He contacted me last week.”
I blinked.
“Why?” I asked.
“He said he’d reinstate my inheritance if he could see Asa,”