need anything further.” He flicked Dr. Taylor’s card between his fingers, but then he pulled out his own card, slid it across the table until it was in front of Daralyn. “If there’s anything else you need to tell us, Miss Moss, don’t hesitate to call.”
“Yes. Thank you. I’m fine.”
His gaze rested on her. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, in a tone that said he didn’t think she was fine. At all.
She remained in the chair as Owen left and Elaine stepped out into the hallway to speak with Rory, Marcus and Thomas. They were talking in low voices.
Daralyn thought of Rory’s expression when he’d first seen them. Haywood’s hands on her. Hurt, anger…then the realization that she hadn’t wanted Hayworth’s hands on her, but she couldn’t tell him no.
It had torn her apart inside, watching him understand that in a way she didn’t think he had before. That changed things, didn’t it? And not just for him.
She belonged to him, yet she hadn’t told Haywood that. She’d been frozen, even Rory’s hold not enough to thaw it.
She’d thought it would be. She’d convinced herself it would be, like a vase sitting on a shelf, believing it couldn’t be broken because it had never fallen off the shelf before.
Now she’d never felt so broken in her entire life, sitting here like an inanimate doll in her dress and sparkling jewelry. A tangled ball of embarrassment, pain and shame rested within her. When the night had started, she’d come to the party on Rory’s arm. His girlfriend, in pretty clothes, with the right hair and makeup. She’d danced with him, and people looked at her the way anyone was looked at, when people liked seeing two people together, in love, having fun.
Then this had happened, and now everyone remembered who she was. The thin, dirty, practically mute girl taken out of a rundown house. The kind to be pitied, whispered about.
She hadn’t realized she knew what pride was, but she suspected the stinging in her gut was something like that.
Mostly she was tired. She wanted to go home, to her cottage, close the door, lie down on her bed, pull the covers over her head. Believing she’d come so far and then realizing she’d never really left the spot where she’d been standing was like a cruel joke she’d played on herself.
That part she could handle, eventually. The problem was she’d played it on the people who had offered her their home, their hearts. She’d let everyone down. Rory deserved better. Far better.
She rose, moved toward the door. Elaine had left it open while standing in the threshold, probably so she could keep Daralyn in sight. Now she turned as Daralyn reached it, saw past her to where Rory was, Marcus and Thomas. Rory’s gaze immediately latched onto her. He looked so handsome tonight, particularly now, when he wore just the dress shirt and loosened tie, his hair tousled over his forehead, his eyes full of so much life and emotion.
One deputy was still in the hallway. Owen was in with the other one, talking to a nervous-looking Hayworth who she could see through the upper pane of glass in the classroom door. She wondered if the lone deputy stood near that door to give Owen and Hayworth privacy, or to ensure, if and when Hayworth emerged, that Rory would let Hayworth return to the party in one piece. Or go home.
Hayworth probably wanted to go home now, too.
She didn’t know the deputy guarding the door, but his expression said he didn’t know what to make of her. Was she a liar who liked getting men into trouble? Or was she simply…not capable, when it came to a situation like this. Rory had described her that way.
Either way, the deputy looked at her as if she couldn’t be trusted. She put her hand on Elaine, a brief touch before she slipped past her and began to walk down the hall, away from all of them. Her skirt slipped against her legs, light as a breeze.
“Daralyn?” Rory caught up to her in a few heartbeats. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” she said, not looking at him. “I need to go home.”
“Okay. But the parking lot’s out the other exit. This just leads to the bus lot.”
“I’ll walk home.”
“Daralyn, it’s eight miles and it’s nearly ten o’clock.”
“It’s okay.”
The roads were quiet here, safe. She’d walked them at night plenty of times since she’d moved into her cottage. She often walked the perimeter of the fields,