“Jesus, Gretchen. Where the hell have you been? I’ve been going out of my mind. Everyone has. Colton’s out driving around looking for you.”
“I needed to think.” She hugged her torso and shivered. “How did you find me?”
He winced.
Of course. “Blake reported the car stolen?”
“He called the vehicle assistance service and asked them to locate it.”
“How clever.”
“He’s not mad, Gretchen. He’s as worried as everyone else.”
She tried to roll her eyes, but another shiver raced through her instead.
Jack scowled. “Where’s your coat?”
“In the car.”
“Here . . .” He took off his tuxedo coat and set it around her shoulders. It chased away some of the night chill but did nothing to thaw the block of ice in her chest. He studied her face for a moment, opened his mouth to say something, and then apparently thought better of it. He backed up. “I need to let everyone know you’re all right.”
As he turned away with this phone, she hobbled on her heels to the tree. With a fingernail, she picked at the chipped edge of one of the old boards that Jack had nailed to the trunk so she could climb as a child.
Behind her, his voice was muffled as he spoke into his phone. “I found her . . . Blake can give you directions . . . I don’t know . . . Okay, I’ll tell her.”
His footsteps drew near again. “Colton is on his way here to get you. He’s a good man. I didn’t think there could ever be anyone good enough for you, but he is.”
Flick. She chipped off another sliver of wood. “That’s a very dad thing to say.”
“I’m sure your father feels the same.”
“We both know that’s not true.” Flick. Another sliver gone.
“It’s too cold out here,” Jack said. “We should wait for Colton in the car.”
“All the times I used to hide out here, did you know what I used to wish for?” Flick. A stubborn chip of wood clung to the edge. “I had this crazy fantasy that maybe I would find out someday that you were my real dad.”
He let out a breath. “Gretchen . . .”
“I almost convinced myself of it too. There’s the age difference between my brothers and me, you know? So I built this whole story in my head that my mother was a stranger or some woman who died or something and you decided that maybe I would be better off being raised by them. Stupid, huh? But it was better than believing that my parents just simply didn’t give a shit that their son was actively abusing their daughter.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Remember when I broke my arm?”
His breath became a shudder. “Are you saying—”
“It was Evan. I was too scared of him to tell anyone the truth.”
“Shit, Gretchen . . .” His voice was a tightrope, wobbly beneath the weight of regret.
“He used to lock me out of the house at night.”
“What?!”
“I was so naive. Every time, I thought we really were just going to play a game. I spent an entire night outside once when I was nine.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I tried. No one believed me.” She flicked her fingernail against the stubborn sliver of wood, and this time it broke free and stabbed her skin. With a muttered curse, she resorted to slapping the board with the palm of her hand. “No one ever believed me!”
“I’m sorry,” Jack croaked. “I’m so sorry.”
She sucked in a sniffle and turned around. “You were right, though, what you said yesterday. All those times I ran away, I didn’t really want to. Every time I was just desperate for someone to notice I was gone and to care enough to beg me to come home.”
“I cared enough. I always came for you.”
“I know. And I’m sorry, but I was so disappointed every time to see you walk in. So that last time, I thought, maybe I just need to do something really crazy, you know? Maybe if I go far enough, maybe if I really fuck up, maybe if I take Blake’s car and go all the way to Michigan, maybe this time they would care enough to come themselves. My parents. But they didn’t. They sent you.”
The crunch of tires announced Colton’s arrival. A car door opened and slammed. The snap of Colton’s footsteps—hurried and urgent—grew louder. “Gretchen?”
He burst from the path with a near skid on the damp, cold grass. When he saw her, Colton jogged toward her, opened his arms, and let out a relieved breath when she walked into them. His chest was warm, his voice soothing. “I was worried.”