“What is it baby?”
“I…”
I turned around and saw a man near the crowd. He didn’t look like he fit in. He didn’t look at all like a Tremé local. He looked, in fact, like he belonged further Uptown in the Historic District where the “homes” were really “mansions” and the residents had gardeners and maids to keep their places up and drivers to get them around the city. This man had to be in his fifties, with pale skin, orangey red hair and long limbs. His cheeks were red, his eyes fiery and crystal blue and that hard rage in his gaze was centered on Ransom.
When the man took a step toward us, Ransom pushed me behind him, with one hand still protectively wrapped around my hip. The gawking, angry man saw the motion, and my hand that had flown up to Ransom’s shoulder, and his thin upper lip curled into a snarl. He shook his head like seeing us together made him sick, like he wanted to pull us apart and keep us that way.
“Ransom…who is that?” I whispered over his shoulder.
I could guess, but Ransom didn’t answer and I could feel the hard tension pulsing through his body as Kona stepped in front of the man and blocked our view of him.
“I have to go,” Ransom said, jerking out of Keira’s touch when she reached us. He didn’t look back as she grabbed for him.
“Ransom, wait,” I said, following after him when Kona returned to Keira’s side. But Ransom didn’t wait, he barely paused when I grabbed his elbow. “Please.”
“Go back with my parents, Aly,” he said, brushing off my touch with his gaze straight ahead. “They’ll take you home.”
“What the hell is going on?” I glanced over my shoulder toward Kona who called after us. “Who is that man?”
Ransom watched his father glaring at the man as he wove in the crowd, then looked away before he stepped back and toward the sidewalk.
“Please tell me what’s going on…”
“What are you doing with me?” Ransom asked, finally giving me a look. “Huh, Aly? What the hell do you want with me?”
I frowned, a little stricken but didn’t hesitate. “Everything.”
The play of emotions on his face told me so much. That instantaneous flash of pleasure at my honest answer, and then the fear, the disappointment took over. Like he thought anything he wanted, anything I wanted with him was hopeless. “That’s not…” He worked his jaw tight, the tension in his muscles moving over his face. Behind me, I felt Keira come up behind me, her fingers grasping my arm but Ransom didn’t bother to look at her. He kept his voice sharp and his words cruel. “I destroy every fucking thing I touch. You might as well get that into your head right now.” Then, he was gone without a backward glance at me or his mother, before his father could catch up with us.
Kona approached, took a few steps onto the sidewalk to follow Ransom before he stopped and turned to stare back at Keira. “Wildcat, let’s go.”
“Aly…” she started, holding my arm tighter, but I wouldn’t go with them to chase after Ransom. If he refused to take what I offered, then I wouldn’t chase after him. I did have some pride. But it hurt so damned bad.
“No, go after him,” I told Keira, nodding when Kona held out his hand to her. She hesitated and then the big man narrowed his eyes, looking at me like he expected me to follow them. “No, it’s fine, Kona. Go ahead.” But Kona was, at the very least, a protector. I could tell by his frown and that concerned dip of his eyebrows that he didn’t like leaving me here. He didn’t need to worry. I was around my folk and I’d always looked after myself even when they didn’t.
“Ransom…doesn’t want me with you all right now and you can’t leave Keira. Go. I’ll be okay.” Kona’s mouth tightened but I shook my head. “Kona, I grew up here. I know people. I’ll get back to Metairie tonight, don’t worry.”
Finally, the man’s mouth relaxed a little. “I don’t like this. You call when you get back, Aly, you hear me?”
“Yeah,” I said, touched that he was worried about me, that he spoke to me like I was their daughter and not just the sitter. “I hear you.”
“Baby, come on,” he told Keira. “Let’s go get him.”
Keira kissed my cheek, brushing off her husband’s hand on her shoulder. “He didn’t mean it, sweetie. He’s a little…lost.”
I nodded, but needed to satisfy my curiosity before they left. “Before you go, tell me. Who was that?” I asked Keira, glancing back toward the crowd where the angry man had disappeared.
She sighed, her breath moving the hair off my shoulder. “Patrick Warren. Emily’s father.”
22
Time alone, that’s what I needed. Time to sulk without distraction.
I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit how much I loved Ransom. He’d rescued me. He kept me under some sort of spell that made up the past year and a half of my life. I wanted him unlike I wanted anything else in my life. But I couldn’t be who I wanted to be, couldn’t completely dispel the predictions my father had made about me being stupid and pointless, if I allowed Ransom to dictate who that person would be.
As much as I loved Ransom, I had to love myself just a little bit more.
Me zanmi, it was so damn hard.
Still, I didn’t need Ransom making attempts to barge into my place. Not as exhausted as the day had made me so I screwed that flippin’ laundry access door shut. It took twelve screws and a few minutes to figure out how to work the drill Leann kept in her office, but now I could keep Ransom out of my place.
For tonight.
Maybe forever.
“I’m home,” I’d told Keira when I called to let them know I’d finally made it back from Tremé—Millie’s granddaughter had taken me to the bus station and twenty minutes later I was back in Metairie.
“Good, sweetie. You lock your doors, now.” She sounded tired, and the night, maybe, the worry over Ransom, had her voice cracking when she spoke. “I wish you would have come home with us.”
“Don’t worry, Mama,” I teased, hoping the affection in my voice wasn’t obvious. “I can take care of myself.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“Maybe,” I said, laughing. Keira never minced words. Then she yawned, and I laughed despite myself. “Go get some sleep.”
“You don’t wanna know what happened with Ransom?”
Keira was fierce, she didn’t sugarcoat a damn thing, and she could be a little pushy. But I knew it was because she cared and that she thought I was what Ransom needed. Still, I didn’t want Keira or Kona in my business. “Keira, if he wants me to know, he’ll tell me.”
“Don’t give up on him, Aly.” She took a breath as though it was more than the day or her pregnancy making her exhausted. “Ransom was born old. And he kept getting older. I guess I depended on him more than I should have and with everything he’s been through, all that damn struggle, he sees the world a lot differently than most kids his age.” Another breath and Keira’s voice went soft. “You can relate, I know. Please just remember that you matter a lot to him.” She paused. “You matter a lot to all of us. We love you.”
When I’d come back to the lake house after Ransom and I got all the fighting out of our systems, I’d seen the quick relief on Keira’s face. Her world had changed so quickly in three short years. She’d gone from being a single parent for sixteen years, to marrying her college sweetheart, to having another baby and she’d admitted to me that it had taken her way out of her comfort zone. “Sometimes I can’t keep up. You help with that.”
In her voice just then, I heard the worry that that Ransom’s dismissal would have me running out on them again. But I wouldn’t do that to her. Not just because he was retreating to the past again—I couldn’t abandon them again.