Love Me Sweet (Bell Harbor, #3)

Tina looked confused too. “I’m sorry. Delaney?”


Delaney looked at Grant, wondering if he wanted to go into the full explanation about her name.

“Elaine,” he said tersely, while still looking at his aunt.

Her guilt doubled, as if that was possible. Because of her, he was lying to them. Maybe not in the purest sense of a lie, but he certainly wasn’t telling them the truth. It was a slippery slope that she was very familiar with, but not one she wanted to send him down.

Tina nodded. “Elaine. Won’t you please sit down?” she asked again. Delaney sank onto the sofa and Grant crossed the floor to sit on the edge of a chair near the fireplace, as far as he could get from her and still be in the same room. She could still feel the anger emanating from him and it scraped at her soul. This wound would be a long time in the healing. For both of them.

“So, no coffee then?” Grant’s aunt seemed to be stalling.

“No coffee, Aunt Tina. Thanks, but could you just get my mother out here and give . . . Elaine her bag back?”

Tina sank down next to Delaney. “There’s a little situation, and I wanted to tell you myself. Maybe I should make Donna do it, but she’s so upset, I know it’ll be easier if I just do it.”

“Situation?” His word landed like a brick on cement.

Tina nodded and looked down at her folded hands. “It seems your mother spent more than she previously admitted.”

Grant visibly blanched and Delaney wondered how much worse this would all get before it finally started to get better. If it would get better.

“How much more?” Grant ground out.

“She told me this morning she spent closer to five hundred.”

Delaney exhaled. That was nothing in the scheme of things, but Grant’s jaw flexed in reaction.

“Fine,” he said. “Now would you get my mother please?”

His aunt looked over at him, twisting her fingers in her lap. “Don’t be too hard on her, Grant. She’s terribly ashamed. She knows what she did was wrong and caused all sorts of people all sorts of pain.”

Tina was talking about his mother, but those words could have been directed at Delaney too. She winced at the irony.

Grant’s voice was stilted as he spoke, as if he had to push the words out through his frustration. “I don’t even want to get into that right now, Aunt Tina. All I want is that bag so that she can get back home to . . . wherever the hell it is that she lives.” He tilted his head toward Delaney and said she as if he couldn’t make himself say her name. Either name. Like the taste of it was so foul on his tongue he couldn’t bear it.

“Here I am,” Donna said softly from the doorway. Her face was splotchy with recently shed tears, and she had her arms wrapped about the backpack as if it were a life preserver. Delaney felt moisture springing to her own eyes. Tears of relief, and sorrow—because Donna Beckett was a sad little woman with a great big problem.

Grant stood up quickly, but Delaney couldn’t. Her legs had turned to Jell-O—warm, jiggly Jell-O—and didn’t seem to function.

Tina wiped her hands down the front of her Tennessee sweatshirt, just like Delaney had seen Donna do a dozen times.

“I’ll do my best to pay you back,” Donna whispered, staring at a spot just next to Delaney, as if she couldn’t quite make eye contact.

“Yes, you will,” Grant said, but his voice wasn’t sharp any longer, or harsh. Just . . . efficient, pragmatic, emotionless. He reached over and took the bag from her, then looked at his aunt.

“Aunt Tina, is there somewhere I could talk to . . . Elaine for a minute. In private?” he asked.

“Uh, of course. There’s the guestroom just down there.”

Tina pointed to a narrow, paneled hallway and Grant stepped toward it. He ignored his mother and looked back at Delaney, his face still Mount Rushmore stony. His expression hadn’t changed since they’d left the hotel. “Come on,” he said to her.

The other women exchanged glances but said nothing.

Delaney stood up and followed him reluctantly down the hall on those wobbly Jell-O legs. They went into a small, square bedroom full of old pine furniture and a threadbare lavender bedspread dotted with faded flowers. Grant slammed the door behind them, and she jumped at the boom of it. Then he chucked the backpack onto the bed.

“Dump it out.” His voice remained flat and detached, but still, his words surprised her.

“What?”

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