The water shut off, and my gut tightened. The sounds of the shower were bad, but the silence was somehow worse. Thoughts of her toweling off, spreading lotion over those long limbs…it was almost more than I could bear.
The thought that I should move back into the main house swirled in my head. There hadn’t been another letter. Not a single sighting of Ian or anyone else lurking around the property. But the idea of heading back to that empty housetwisted something deep. I didn’t want to leave Shiloh, and it wasn’t just because I thought she needed protection.
By the time she emerged a few minutes later, my back molars were nearly ground to nubs. She had a towel wrapped around her hair in one of those twist things. Nothing about her pajamas should’ve been sexy but, somehow, they were. The flannel bottoms hung off her hips in a way that had me begging for just a glimpse of that golden skin around her waist. The t-shirt she wore was paper-thin and worn in a way that I knew meant comfort but also left little to the imagination when it came to the curves beneath it.
I swallowed hard. “Feel better?”
She nodded, lowering herself to the opposite end of the couch. Kai immediately ditched me and moved to her, dropping his head on her lap. Shiloh stroked his fur, and he practically purred. “How are you doing?”
Her gaze was assessing, a survey that spoke of worry and care. Normally, that kind of attention grated. But from Shiloh? It was a balm. “Just hoping they’re settling in okay.”
“Hayes said the Millers are good people. They’ve been foster parents for decades.”
Just because you looked good from the outside didn’t mean you actually were. My stepdad had been revered in our community. A successful financial planner who donated to local charities and volunteered at the homeless shelter every Thanksgiving. He used that impeccable image to hide the monster within.
Fingers linked with mine on the back of the couch, and Shiloh squeezed tightly. “You’ll see for yourself tomorrow afternoon. If you have any concerns, we’ll go to Hayes.”
I nodded slowly, relishing the contact and the feel of her skin against mine. I swore my heart traveled up my arm and towardsmy chest. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt a warmth like that. “He was good today. With Aidan and Elliott.”
It burned to let the words free, and I hated myself for that. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who judged all by the actions of a few. But I couldn’t seem to stop myself. My experiences had been too intense and had made me too guarded.
Shiloh’s thumb traced a circle on my palm. “Thanks for giving him a chance to be.”
I wasn’t going to sign up for any sheriff’s department fundraisers, but I could admit that Hayes’ heart was probably in the right place. There was no guarantee for the rest of his department, though.
“One at a time,” Shiloh said as if she’d read my mind. “All you have to do is give people a chance to show you who they really are.”
My gaze burned into hers. “Some people are good at hiding it.”
“Some are. But the truth always comes out eventually.”
That much was true. But, sometimes, the price to pay for the time it took was too high.
“Your stepfather…he’s in jail now?”
I tried to keep my body from going rigid but failed. “Life sentence.”
Shiloh kept up those circles, keeping me from falling into the spiral of memories and keeping me in the here and now. “I’m so sorry they didn’t believe you and that they let money corrupt them. I’m so sorry you lost your mom.”
Her words hurt. Pained me because she couldn’t take away the past. But I felt how much she wanted to try. “It was a slow sickness, the way he warped her mind. He got her into this cycle where she didn’t know up from down.”
“But he didn’t pull you into it.”
“How do you know that?”
A sad smile played at her lips. “You see the truth too well to have believed the lies.”
“I fell for it the first time. He backhanded me for spilling peas on the floor. The next day, I got a brand-new bike. I thought it meant that he was sorry. I thought it was his promise to never do it again.”
Shiloh’s grip on my hand tightened. “But you were wrong.”
“He didn’t even hold out another week. Eventually, the presents stopped. Maybe because I never touched them. Maybe because he lost the desire to create the illusion.”
“I hope he hurts as bad as he hurt you and your mom.”
He likely did. Prison wasn’t a kind place for those who hurt children, and his trial had been a very public one.
“I’d never want to go through it all again, but in a lot of ways, it made me who I am.”