“I couldn’t protect your mother when I was younger,” he says. “But I can protect others now.”
I swallow. This question has to be asked or I’ll regret it. “Why didn’t you take me in?”
A creak of the floorboards and a long sigh. “Because that would have meant bringing you back here, and I couldn’t make peace with the idea. Maybe it was a bad choice, and I don’t blame you if you hate me for it. No one, including priests, is perfect.”
Fair enough. I came to Vail for answers and now that I’ve received them, it’s time I take care of the parts of my life worth saving. “Thanks. For telling me the truth.”
“I wouldn’t mind a phone call or two. Christmas and Easter. The house has been lonely for the past three years without that ring.”
I nod, though he can’t see it. “I can do that.”
Without another word, I walk out of the darkness of the confessional, out of the shadows of the church, and into the sunlight.
Echo
Hunter’s eyes bulge out of his head. “What did you say your last name is?”
I’m the daughter of the great Cassie Emerson. The daughter of one of the women he admires most when it pertains to painting. His eyes wander to the scars on my arms, and it’s as if his mind audibly clicks. The rumors are true: I’m the daughter that the great Cassie Emerson tried to kill.
“Emerson,” I repeat.
“As in Cassie Emerson.”
I nod.
“You’re her daughter.”
I nod again.
His face flushes red. “You didn’t think it was important to tell me that?”
“No.” In fact, it was more important that he not know.
“No?” Hunter’s fingers spread as he begins to raise his palms, then lowers them. “Get out. Take your painting and get out.”
I jolt as if I had been hit by a semi. “What?”
“You heard me. Get out.” Hunter turns his back to me, and it takes a moment for the shock to wear off before my feet start after him.
“What difference does it make that I’m her daughter?”
“A lot.” Hunter stops at his desk in the corner and flips through a stack of invoices as if he didn’t ram a spike into my dreams.
“Why? I’m totally separate from her.”
“I wanted raw. I wanted an opportunity to take someone who had never been trained and say I helped create them. You’re not new. You’ve had an advantage since birth. You learned how to write your ABCs from one of the best artistic minds. I didn’t create you. Your mother did.”
But my mother didn’t teach me how to write. My father did. And my mother wasn’t the first to teach me how to draw. My brother did. Yeah, Mom painted and when she was around she encouraged me, but she didn’t teach me. Nothing beyond basics. Nothing that wouldn’t make me as new as anyone else here. That would have required her to have been consistent and a stable force.
I never knew I could be so near something and watch it all slip through my fingers the moment I tried to close my fist. It’s like an out-of-body experience. All the people who had sat at my feet before are now drawn back into their own worlds, pretending I don’t exist.
Six months ago, I would have cowered. I would have looked at the scars and felt like I was below the scum of the earth. Instead, I return to my easel, pick up the canvas, stalk back over and slam it onto Hunter’s desk. His coffee tips over and spills.
A smirk stretches across my face when the majority of it splashes onto the crotch of his pants.
Stealing a thin paint brush out of the hand of the guy working next to me, I dip it in white paint and sign my name at the right bottom corner of the painting. I flick the paintbrush at Hunter, causing little white dots to stain his crisp blue button-down shirt. “You can keep the painting because in five years, it’s going to be worth more than your tired, pathetic career.”
Hunter wipes at the coffee pooled on his pants. “Echo—”
“I’m not done.” I cut him off and bang both of my hands on his desk, leaning forward so he knows this conversation belongs to me. “For your info, my mom never taught me to paint or to draw or much of anything. Not in the way you’re thinking. So tip number one, stop making assumptions regarding me or anyone else. Tip number two, my boyfriend can and will kick your butt so don’t you dare come near me again. And tip number three, most of your paintings really do suck.”
The jerk actually grins as he rolls back in his seat. “I guess you’ve put me in my place.”
Is he laughing at me? “Yeah, I guess I did.”
“Do you mean what you said about my paintings?”