Make Me Yours (Bellamy Creek #2) - Melanie Harlow Page 0,101
“But I better go pick up Mariah now. It’s getting late.”
In the car on the way home, I went over the uncomfortable conversation again and again, hating myself for lying to my friends but also irritated that they thought they knew better than I did how to handle the situation. It was easy for them to trust in good things. They weren’t me. They hadn’t been through what I had.
I had to take a few minutes and calm down before I walked over to Cheyenne’s.
She greeted me at the front door with a hug and a smile, flour dusted all over her clothes. “Come on in! We’re just waiting for the second batch to come out of the oven.”
I went inside, inhaling the homey scent of fresh-baked cookies mingling with the Balsam fir Christmas tree, trying desperately to relax. Cheyenne was good at reading my face, and I didn’t want her to ask me what was wrong tonight. I was too exhausted to be convincing.
“Daddy!” Mariah yelled when I entered the kitchen. She wore a red apron that was way too big for her, which she’d obviously wiped her hands on many times. “Want to help us decorate?”
I yawned. “How about I just watch?”
“Tired?” Cheyenne asked.
“A little.”
“Want a cup of coffee?”
“That sounds great.”
“Hello, dear,” Darlene called from the sink, where she was washing out a mixing bowl.
“Hi, Mrs. Dempsey.”
I sat at the dining room table with a cup of coffee and watched Mariah and Cheyenne frost and sprinkle their cookies. They laughed and teased each other, trading funny looks and making inside jokes that should have made me trust in good things.
But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
Over Cheyenne’s shoulder, there was a clock on the wall. I could hear it ticking.
Twenty-Eight
Cheyenne
Christmas Eve, I was getting ready to head over to the Mitchells’ house when my mother popped her head into my room. “Got a minute?”
“Sure,” I said, holding up two different earrings and checking the mirror to see which one I liked better with the high-necked black lace top I had on. “Which one do you think?”
My mother sat on the bed behind me and looked at my reflection. “Hmmm, I like the smaller ones.”
“Okay.” I set the dangly one down and put on the little hoops. “What’s up?”
“I just wondered if you’d noticed anything unusual about Cole last night.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he just seemed off to me. Not his usual self.”
“How so?” I asked, even though I knew.
“Quiet. Distracted. Even anxious.”
“He said he was tired. And he had a really eventful week.” I felt the need to defend him, even though I was worried too. “I get the feeling he hasn’t been sleeping well lately.”
“That could be it.” She hesitated. “So he’s mentioned the nightmares to you?”
“Nightmares?” I finished fastening the second hoop and turned to face her. “No. What nightmares?”
“Oh, dear. Well, maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, but his mother mentioned to me that he’s been having nightmares so bad he wakes up yelling in the middle of the night.”
A chill swept up my spine. “What? Since when?”
“She didn’t say exactly when it started, but I had lunch with her yesterday and she seemed so tense about something—it took me a while to get it out of her, but then she confessed. She said it happened at least twice this week.”
“Wow.” My heart ached that Cole hadn’t felt he could confide in me about it. “That’s . . . that’s awful.”
“I knew he used to have them when he was younger,” my mother went on, “and for the longest time he couldn’t sleep over with Griffin. But he grew out of them. Odd that they’re back all of a sudden.”
“Yes, it is,” I said, a strange mix of dread and sadness in my belly. “Maybe it was the episode with the baby?”
“Maybe.” My mother sighed. “But it makes sense now why he’s seeing a therapist.”
“A therapist?”
“Yes. Deb Culpepper saw him in the waiting room of her son’s therapist a couple weeks ago, and said he was acting very strange.”
“Is she sure it was him?”
“He was wearing his uniform,” my mother said with a shrug.
“Oh.” My brow furrowed and then relaxed. “Oh! I bet it was Mariah’s therapist whose office he was at. He spoke with her recently about us, in fact.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good. Anyway, I’m sure it’s all fine, but I just wondered if things were okay with the two of you.”
“Yes,” I said, turning back to the mirror and picking up a lipstick.