only girl in Crystal Lake who had her heart broken as a teenager?” Surprised as the words fell from her lips, Poppy took a second to consider them. He had been only a kid. An eighteen-year-old boy who’d only now hinted at some dark things in his life. How could she hold that against him? “You don’t know anything about him. Not then and not now either.”
“I know he used you, took your virginity like it meant nothing.”
“What? How would you know that?” Shocked, she stared at her mother, mouth open, thoughts whirling. When things settled a bit, she slowly shook her head. “You read my diary?”
Her mother continued on as if she’d never spoken, which was in and of itself an admission of her guilt. “If Mrs. Crabtree’s observations are correct, he’s using you again.”
“So you think Boone’s spending time with me, not because he likes me, but because he’s using me for sex?”
“Don’t be so crude,” her mother retorted as her cheeks flushed a dark red. “And please tell me you’re not sleeping with a married man.”
“He’s separated.”
“Do you know that for sure? Men lie about those things all the time.”
Technically, Poppy had no idea if Boone was legally separated or not, but she wasn’t letting her mother in on that.
“His ex lives in New Orleans, and he’s here with his son.”
“Well, that’s another thing. Have you really thought about what it means to get involved with a man who has a child with someone? They’ll always be connected, and she will always be the mother of his child. And you can’t—”
Pain twisted inside Poppy. A big, heavy, and hard kind of thing that smashed against her rib cage until she found it hard to breathe.
“And I can’t have any?” The words were torn from Poppy. It hurt that her mother would bring up something so painful and personal. How could she? Blindly, Poppy turned and started to walk away.
“Poppy, I’m so sorry. I never meant…”
Poppy paused, but didn’t bother to turn around. “You never mean anything, but you do it all the same.” She blew out a breath and took one more step before something occurred to her. “Did Boone come to see me that fall? Did he call the house?”
Seconds ticked by. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Oh, but she does, Poppy thought. She heard the hesitation, the guilt and maybe remorse that colored her mother’s words in a flat tone.
Poppy didn’t bother to reply and pushed past a few folks who’d stood by pretending not to listen. She moved ahead and didn’t answer when she heard Molly Jacobs shout her name. In fact, it spurred her into a run, and she took the path that followed the river, slowing to a walk once she was out of sight. She kept walking until the sounds of the park faded, until there were no more voices or laughter on the wind. Until the town disappeared and she realized she was near the forest on the other side of the old mill. Without hesitation, she continued down the path that cut through the thick stand of trees, and when she reached the big boulder full of names and dates that went back generations, she took a sharp left down a barely used path and eventually came to an elevated clearing that overlooked the river.
By this time, she was breathing heavily and sat her butt down on a fallen tree trunk. Hot, angry tears, the same ones that had threatened to fall since the park, gave way and tore tracks down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away, but let them fall as her thoughts took her back to a dark time and place. To a rainy night and an angry man; the night her dreams were smashed into a million pieces.
“No,” she said hoarsely, jumping to her feet. “I’m not going back there.” She’d learned to let go, to take back her power from a man who’d controlled her with his jealous rages and weepy, pathetic apologies.
It was then that Poppy realized exactly where she was. Boone’s clearing.
“Oh,” she said softly, turning in a full circle, unable to banish the images and memories from her mind. She closed her eyes and let them wash over her, welcoming them so that she could hold them close once more.
She’d been so in love with the boy who’d grown into the man she’d fallen for all over again. And she had fallen. There was no doubt about that now.