“What I done today at the shop, it’s how I help folks.” She waited a beat to see how these words would sit with Tierra.
“What kind of help?”
“All kinds. Hurt feelins’, broken bones. I can bring around most anybody. Lots of times it’s just somethin’ needs drawin’ off. I take it from them, and then they’re better.”
“So how long have you known you could help people like that?”
“’Bout the same time I started my period and all that. Before that it was just takin’ care of my uncles. Talkin’ fish into the boat and keepin’ everyone fed.”
Moira watched Tierra wrestle with this information, struggling to form words that were neither bossy nor harsh.
“Moira,” she said at last. “You’ve spent your whole life taking care of other people. Healing them. Giving to them.”
“I ‘spose.” Moira shrugged.
“Listen to me,” Tierra insisted, dropping the umbrella and taking Moira’s cold hands in her warm ones. “I know you do what you do out of kindness. Out of love for the people around you. But you’re more than just what you can do for other people. Do you know that?”
A gull’s call in the distance sounded exactly as displaced as Moira felt. “I don’t know if there’s much left, once you take away the helpin’.”
“I do,” Tierra said.
“No offense,” Moira snorted. “But you don’t know an awful lot about me besides what I told ya.”
“I know the only thing that matters.”
“What’s that?”
Tierra’s hands tightened over hers. “You’re my sister. Nothing you could ever do or say is going to change that.”
“You didn’t seem all that thrilled with what I was doin’ or sayin’ earlier,” Moira reminded her.
“I know.” Tierra’s gaze floated out over the water, mining the depths of some unseen past. “I’ve spent my whole life feeling like something was missing. Like someone was missing. Then suddenly you’re here. But it’s nothing like I thought it would be.”
“Tell me about it. In the course of twenty-four hours, I found out I was separated at birth from my twin sister, dumped in a bayou, and raised by a bunch of drunks that pulled me out in a catfish net. Not to mention, I got an aunt that hates me more n’ whores hate church.”
“Aunt Justine doesn’t hate you. She’s just scared.” Tierra exhaled and dropped her sister’s hands. “I guess I was too.”
“What for?”
“I saw the way everyone in the shop was with you. The way the men watched your every move. The way the women judged you. You let them take whatever they wanted from you without so much as a word of protest.”
Moira made no attempt to deny this. Such had it always been.
“You’re better than that, Moira,” Tierra continued. “I just wanted you to see it.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Say you’ll try.” The pleading note in her sister’s voice left Moira’s heart feeling bloody and bruised. It was so raw. So vulnerable. So not Tierra. “Say you’ll stay.”
Moira shivered. “I guess I wouldn’t mind a bubble bath in that clawfoot tub upstairs.”
“Yay!” Tierra hugged her with such force that the air was knocked clean out of Moira’s lungs. Whatever chance she might have of recovering was compromised by the bone-crushing squeeze of her sister’s arms around her shoulders.
This is what it was like to be hugged by another female. Such a strange combination of softness and strength.
“I ain’t wearin’ a bra though,” Moira said.
“Will you at least wear this?” Tierra slid out of her shawl and wrapped the still-warm garment around Moira’s shivering shoulders. “You’re soaked to the skin and cold as death.”
The simple kindness of this gesture set Moira’s bottom lip to quivering. She pulled the fabric tighter around her, not wanting to lose even a trace of warmth from her sister’s skin. “Thanks.”
They turned together and angled back toward town.
“Just out of curiosity,” Tierra probed. “What kind of help were you giving Mr. Kingswood just now?”
“Not a lick.” Lick. Moira felt regret stir up like silt from a river bottom. She’d have liked to lick Nick Kingswood a little. Probably there was a lot on him that would taste pretty good, if that wicked mouth of his was any indication.
Tierra’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “So if you weren’t trying to help him and you weren’t trying to help me, why exactly were you examining his tonsils?”
Heat flooded Moira’s cheeks at the fresh memory. “On account of he’s more fun to ride than a rodeo bull. He told me to take what I wanted. So, I