“Okay, uh, thank you for that and last night,” Bryn replied with a soft smile that was as genuine as I was going to get, and that was a good thing.
“No problem,” I replied. I shifted my gaze from her to the kid. “See you around,” I told him.
He didn’t smile at me this time but nodded his head. His shoulders were slumped, as if my leaving was letting him down. Damn, this wasn’t something I had been prepared for either.
“Cullen, I need a little help, washing the berries. Can you get a chair and do that for me?” Bryn asked.
Just like that, his face brightened, and he rushed over to grab a kitchen chair.
She smirked when I looked back at her and shrugged. “He’ll be fine,” she assured me.
I knew he would be. I had witnessed how fine he was with my own eyes. I started to turn for the door when I paused and looked back at her. She was watching me.
“I forgive you for bashing the Jeep,” I told her. “It’s forgotten. Whatever made you do it, I don’t care.” If nothing else, I needed to let that go.
I didn’t wait for a response before heading for the door this time. She hadn’t expected my forgiveness, and I knew she probably didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t require one. I’d just needed to get that out. Then, maybe I could put her behind me. Move on from what I had witnessed here and forget her.
“Aunt Bryn didn’t bash your Jeep,” Cullen called out, and I paused with my hand on the doorknob.
“Cullen,” Bryn said his name, but I turned back around and looked directly at her.
She looked nervous and unsure. It was as if she was battling shoving me out the door or covering Cullen’s mouth.
I shouldn’t have said it in front of the kid. I hadn’t thought before speaking. Shit. He hadn’t needed to hear something bad about the woman he trusted and loved. But how did I backtrack and fix this?
“You’re right. I got confused. I think I dreamed that.” I replied, hoping that was enough so he would forget about it.
Cullen frowned at me. It had been a poor cover-up, but he was four.
Did he have to think it over so hard? Let it go, kid.
“You didn’t dream it,” he said to me. “We found Mama with that pole, beating up a Jeep. Aunt Bryn told me to lie back in my car seat and close my eyes, but I didn’t.” He looked at his aunt and lowered his head. “I’m sorry I looked, but I was scared Mama would hurt you with that pole.”
“It’s okay,” she assured him, then reached down and ran a hand over his head. “Go on and wash the berries,” she added, but she didn’t look at me.
She shifted her gaze down at the kitchen towel she was wringing in her hands. I waited for her to elaborate. To explain why I’d found her with a pole in her hand and not Tory. Asking Cullen to say more felt wrong. He shouldn’t have known the truth or witnessed it. But him being in the backseat made sense. Where else would he have been? I knew now that there was no way Bryn would have left him home alone to come bash my Jeep. Maybe once, I would have believed that about her, but not now. I had seen too much into their life in my brief stay here.
“You gonna say anything?” I asked her when the silence continued.
She sighed and finally lifted her eyes to meet mine. “What?” she snapped.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe explain why you took the blame for it, lost your job,” I began and decided to leave out, Started working at a strip club . I had already said too much in front of the kid.
Bryn leveled her gaze on me, and it suddenly looked more like a glare. She was angry with me, as if I should understand. As if this were my fault.
“I did what I had to do,” she replied.
How the hell was this my fault? She had let me believe she had bashed my Jeep. I’d had every right to be pissed off about it. I should have filed charges that night. I shouldn’t have let my insurance pay for it. And she’d given two thousand dollars for it.
“You lost your job and your last paycheck. How was that the thing to do? Look at what you ended up doing because of it.” I stopped myself and glanced at the kid.
He was watching me. This wasn’t the place for this conversation. He didn’t need to hear it. But he had seen what had happened that night.
I looked back at her, and with a softer voice, I asked, “What if I had pressed charges? He needs you .”