her off. She was easily dumb enough to try to swallow the thorns.
“I just don’t trust it. There’s always an ulterior motive with Eleanor. It doesn’t make sense for her to be all gung-ho about helping otherwise.”
“Maybe she’s had a change of heart,” Deacon mused.
“I’m not convinced she has one.”
“Come on.”
“What? All it takes is one invitation to coffee and suddenly you’re Team Eleanor?” I shook my head. “If she actually cared about anything other than her own comfort, there were plenty of times she could have helped before.”
Deacon frowned thoughtfully. “I think maybe she thought she couldn’t. She hasn’t quite said this, but I get the feeling Grandpa might have had something to do with it.”
“I just don’t understand why everyone’s so ready to forgive and forget and work with her,” I exploded. “You’re talking to her again, Julian’s got her working as a volunteer in his classroom. Does no one else want to hold her accountable for her actions?”
Deacon blinked. “She volunteers with Julian?”
“In a reading program, apparently.”
“So you really have been talking to him, then,” Deacon said. I looked at him sharply and he continued, “I mean, for you to know all those details.”
“Actually, it was Eleanor who told me.”
“Oh.”
“But I have been talking to him. A little.”
I wasn’t sure why I said it. Deacon didn’t need to know that. No one did.
But some part of me wanted to claim it, I guess. Claim him.
Deacon’s eyes widened in surprise. “Okay. So you guys are—”
“We’re nothing,” I said, my voice harsh.
What? It was only a part of me that had wanted Deacon to know, after all. Most of me still reflexively wanted Deacon to keep his nose out of my business.
But Deacon just gave me another one of those gentle, understanding looks. “Well, I still think that’s great. You don’t have to talk about it. Obviously. But I know you were… something… back in high school. And I’ve always thought it was a shame you guys lost touch.”
It was such a parent thing to say. It took everything in me not to respond sarcastically.
After a moment’s silence, Deacon said, “So the conversation with Eleanor. How’d it end?”
“Exactly the way you’d imagine. She had the audacity to say I should be more grateful after ‘everything she’s done’ for our family. I told her she was a hypocrite. And we’re probably lucky neither one of us tried to strangle the other.” I bit the words off. “That’s what really gets me. Who knows, maybe Grandpa dying woke her up to how she’s been a bigoted crone for the past thirty years, and maybe she really does want to make amends. But to act like she’s ever helped us before is just a lie. Which, you know—she can lie to herself all she wants. But I’ll be damned if I accept it.”
Deacon’s eyes went distant, and we walked on in silence for another few blocks. It wasn’t until we were back at the Wisteria that he spoke.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
I raised an eyebrow. Nothing good had ever come after those words. Deacon gave me a look I couldn’t decipher.
“Eleanor did help us,” he said slowly. “Back before the accident. When Mom had cancer. She paid for her medical care.”
“What?” I stared at him. “We paid for that. I mean, Dad did. The inn did. That’s why we were in so much debt afterwards.”
Deacon shook his head. “We were already in debt. You were a little too young, I think, to know. But Mom and Dad sank everything they had into the Wisteria, and they didn’t have much to start with.”
“No thanks to Eleanor.” I couldn’t hide the bitterness in my voice.
“True,” Deacon agreed. “But the point is, the inn was not in good shape when they bought it. Old wooden buildings in a humid subtropical climate take a lot of upkeep, as I’ve come to learn over the years. Just to get it functional and keep it running, they’d already taken out huge loans, maxed out their credit cards. By the time Mom got sick, there was nothing left.”
He sighed. “At that point, we hadn’t spoken to Eleanor or Grandpa in years. But I could see Mom and Dad worrying about money, see how it kept them up at night. So I went to Eleanor and asked for her help.”
“You what? How the hell could you—she cut Mom off, and you went and groveled?”
“I thought Mom was dying. She would have, if they hadn’t found the money they