Page 30 of Hunter or Hunted

But if I said that, I would only dig myself in deeper.

“I wasn’t trying to discredit your friendship.”

“That’s exactly what you were trying to do.”

My jaw tightened, and my head pounded. Chest hollowing, everything blackened and blurred around the edges. It wasn’t anger, but anxiety.

This was why I hated conflict. I saw where Gwen was coming from, but she was wrong.

She loved Delilah, and one day, if they had the chance, they would have become the best of friends. Losing that, mourning what could have been, had to hurt. I did understand that.

But Sarah took the blame when I broke a priceless vase in the formal dining room. She took the beating for it.

Sarah taught me to ride a bike. She taught me to read. She did my homework with me each night. She tucked me in before bed.

She was my best friend for twenty-two years. She was the reason I survived my childhood.

I loved my sister in a way that Gwen couldn’t have loved Delilah.

As my blood pressure rose, I turned back to the chicken. The pieces I’d tossed in were browning now. I flipped them over, the methodical action lowering my racing heart.

“I had nothing when I came here, Sebastian.” Gwen’s voice was quieter now. An octave or two lower than the crackles and snaps of the frying food. “I never had siblings. But years ago, before my ex, before I was married, I had friends. Friends who were like family. And I lost them. Because of him, because of me—I don’t know. I lost my mom too. I almost lost Honey.”

Where was she going with this? It piqued my interest, drawing my gaze to hers. But she wasn’t looking at me. She stood only a foot or two away, eyes glued to the food in the pan.

“Then I came here. I felt the love of this place, of these people.” She paused. “These women. Each one of us, we all have our own stories. Events that brought us here. Pain and rage and heartache and—and you’re right. Delilah was only here a few months. But I’ve only known Simone a couple months, too. A drop compared to the years of history I had with those friends who vanished when I became too much, when I needed them.” Her eyes met mine. They were gentler than I expected. “I’ve only known you a year. I was with my husband for ten. But I love you a thousand times more than I ever loved him.

“Because it isn’t the time that matters. It’s the connections, the vulnerability, the intimacy we all share.” She grabbed the apple juice off the counter and spun off the lid. “Rhiannon’s Ranch is a house of cards. We hold one another up. If one of us falls, we all fall. That’s how I feel about Delilah. She was a part of my home. She was right alongside me, learning from me, and she fell down, and that gust of wind shoved me down with her.”

My eyes stayed on Gwen as she lifted the juice to her lips and gulped. She shifted her gaze somewhere else. On the ceiling as she sipped, then on the floor, then the wall. Not looking at any one thing in particular, not looking at anything at all.

“If she would’ve left, or gone back to him, or killed herself, it would’ve hurt. But you’re right. This”—she gestured over herself, splashing apple juice onto her chest—“this mess isn’t because a girl I knew for a couple months died. This is…”

The sizzling on the stove crescendoed. So focused on her, I forgot to pay any mind to the snapping and crackling. As I reached in to stab one of the tenders, darker than I would’ve liked them, Gwen came in closer. The heat of her body radiated into my back.

“Pop. Pop, pop, pop.” Ominous, her words echoed the oil in the pan. Gesturing to the clock on the back of the stove, reading 4 o’clock, she spoke in a haunting whisper. “Another one. Another woman, somewhere in America, dead by hands that swore to hold and protect her. Don’t you…”

My shaking fingertips flicked off the heat. I felt her stare on me. It weighed a thousand pounds. Meeting it felt like getting crushed beneath a truck.

“Don’t you feel it?” Barely above a whisper, confusion wrinkling her face, a single tear pearled the corner of her eye. “You don’t feel it.”

That time, a statement. Not a question.

“Of course you don’t.” Her wrinkled forehead ironed back out. Her tone flattened. She smacked that tear off her cheek. “Because you don’t experience it every day of your life. When you go on a first date, you’re afraid of a broken heart, that she won’t like you, or that you’re not good enough somehow. But we’re afraid of him. Of hurting his ego. Of saying no. Of pissing him off and getting fucking killed for it.”

Chills swept over my skin, pricking the hairs on the back of my neck and bringing them to their ends.

“You don’t have to walk on broken glass all day, every day.”

She held that glass jar of apple juice between her thumb and pointer finger. It swung back and forth as she paced past the fridge, then the fireplace, and back. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t look at anything. Fire shined in her eyes, but they weren’t here. They were on another dimension, maybe another time, surveying a scene I hoped I’d never see.

“You think the Jasons and the Davids of the world are the outliers.” She tore off the blanket and draped it over the dining chair. “You wouldn’t hurt a woman, you don’t have any friends who would, so the bad men are the anomalies. They’re there, you’ve seen them, but not that many of them. You think treating women with decency and respect is the norm, and it isn’t, Sebastian. You’re the anomaly. There are more bad men out there than there are good.”

I did my best to keep my expression neutral. But surely she saw the sag of my shoulders, the faster pace of my breath. Because, yes. I did pat myself on the back for being a half decent guy. And no, these weren’t thoughts that ran through my mind on a day-to-day basis.

Not for me, at least. But they ran through my mind each time Lizzie left the house.

Off the top of my head, I could name a dozen women I’d trust to watch my niece. But I couldn’t name a single man I’d leave her alone with.