The deputies had flanked Hayworth and were gesturing Rory, Marcus and Thomas out of the room ahead of them. Hayworth was still talking a mile a minute, making it even clearer he was high. Probably drunk to boot.

  A night that had started out so well had gone to shit. But his anguish about that wasn’t on his own behalf. As he reached the door, he couldn’t make himself go any further, but Thomas was there, a hand on his shoulder, keeping him from going back to her.

  “Mom will watch over her,” he said in a low voice. “You know she will.”

  But that wasn’t his mother’s job. It was his. The man who loved her. Her Master. His gaze went to Marcus, because he knew Marcus understood.

  “It sucks ass,” Marcus muttered. “But she’s safe. Give them a few moments, and then we’ll deal with the next thing.”

  As they moved into the hallway, one of the deputies closed the cafeteria door with a thud that speared Rory’s heart. He spun his chair around, nearly taking out Thomas’s toes, and planted himself, staring at the closed panel as if he could send his thoughts and feelings past it to Daralyn. He was here. He wouldn’t abandon her.

  He’d seen her have panic attacks that took her beyond speech, a near-catatonic state. It had been a long time since she’d had one that bad, but he hadn’t forgotten how terrifying they were.

  When they were younger and he’d first witnessed them, his parents had worried she might someday retreat so deep inside, past caring or want, she’d never find her way back.

  Even if it wasn’t that bad, at times like this, she could be like an injured wild animal, dedicated to making herself as small and unnoticed as possible. She’d come so far, but this one night might send her back months. All because he’d decided to let his ego be stroked by some damn award he didn’t need.

  The deputies herded the curious and concerned back toward the auditorium, though Brick was the most difficult to move. At least until Rory met his gaze and gave him a nod that said he knew where to find him if needed. Only then did Brick go, leaving just the three of them and one of the deputies in the hallway. The other one had Hayworth in the classroom a couple doors down.

  Fuck it. He could feel her pain, knew she was in that dark place of her nightmares. He started forward again, but before the deputy could intercept him, Marcus was there.

  “Get out of my way,” Rory said. “I don’t give a fuck what he said. She needs me.”

  “Yeah, she does. You getting arrested for assaulting a cop isn’t going to help with that.” Marcus nailed him with that stare. “Put your dick away and use the right head for this. Think about how to help her under these circumstances, the way things are, not how you wish they were.”

  He wished they’d never left home tonight. But then, thinking of her dancing with Amanda, her laughter, he knew that wasn’t a good thought. Marcus was right. He needed to take these few moments, frustrating though they were, to figure out the correct one.

  Elaine helped Daralyn up with a firm hand under her arm, and guided her to sit down at one of the lunch tables. Elaine sat beside her, Owen across from them both.

  Elaine held her hand, was chafing it between both of hers. She wasn’t acting angry, so that was something. Daralyn held Rory’s coat around her with her other hand. It still had the warmth of his body, but there was a barrier between her flesh and the cloth. Nothing was warming her.

  She’d failed. Disappointed.

  Owen was saying something, but she couldn’t focus, not until Elaine squeezed her fingers. “Daralyn, the sheriff is asking you a question.”

  There was a sadness to her face. Daralyn had caused that sadness. Tonight was supposed to be a happy night. Daralyn had ruined it.

  All those things Rory had talked about on the stage, what Elaine had gone through when Rory had been hurt, when Thomas had been torn between two worlds, when she’d worried Les would drop out of medical school to marry Bart, the senior who’d insisted they get married. All of them were the ups and downs of being a mother. Elaine had suffered on Daralyn’s behalf, too. Treating her as a daughter. This was how Daralyn repaid her.

  What she’d allowed Hayworth to do had not been right. Not even close to right.

  Maybe Elaine was regretting ever bringing her into her home. Her uncle and father had told her she had to do everything right, everything they said, because she had no value otherwise.

  Daralyn knew she’d come farther than that. She should know it. These thoughts shouldn’t be able to hold her the way they did, but this situation, the noise, the people, Rory’s absence, the riot of emotions pushing in on her from all sides, and a great geyser of it coming up from her own core…

  The darkness had never left, just as her soul had always known. The abyss was waiting.

  Put you in the hole…never take you out.

  Everything Elaine had told her earlier, the tentative confidence Daralyn had felt, vanished before things she’d been told over and over again, been left to remember in darkness, cold and hunger.

  “Miss…” Owen was fishing for her last name.

  “Moss,” Elaine supplied. “Daralyn Moss.”

  Moss growing green and close on a tree, deep in a quiet forest. It was a good image. It was also the maiden name of Daralyn’s mother. Elaine had insisted on using it when she and Robert had become Daralyn’s legal guardian. Not Moorfield, her father’s name.

  “Miss Moss,” Owen said. “Did you want Hayworth to touch you?”

  Elaine cleared her throat. Owen raised a finger, stopping her. “No interference,” he said sharply. “Or you’ll be escorted from the room, Mrs. Wilder.”

  His tone made Daralyn cringe, and he saw it. His voice softened. “Did you?”

  Daralyn stared through him. The storm was building in her ears, a roar. Sometimes in the cellar, she’d imagined it bursting through, filling up the space, taking all her air, her body floating in it, finally beyond the wanting her father and uncle had said was wrong.

  “I…I…fine. Okay. Fine. I need to go home now. It’s fine.” She held onto that word desperately. Maybe it would be enough.

  Owen’s brows pulled down low. He had steady, watching eyes. They probed, wanted things from her she couldn’t give. Elaine made a noise and Owen shot her a look, but this time Elaine wouldn’t be silenced. Her voice was calm, though, offering explanation, not defiance.

  “Daralyn has difficulty expressing things in terms of what she wants, Sheriff. A different phrasing might work better.”

  A puzzled look crossed his face, but Elaine waited him out, patiently staring him down. At length, Owen sighed. Frowned. “Miss Moss, did you tell Hayworth no?”

  “No.” She hadn’t.

  Owen’s brow rose, reflecting his surprise at how easily the answer had come. He glanced at Elaine, then brought his thoughtful gaze back to Daralyn.

  “Did you push him away?”

  “No.”

  “Did he hurt you? Frighten you?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to press charges against Hayworth for assault?”

  “No.” The surge of panic at the idea must have shown in her face, because when she looked toward Elaine, the older woman’s hand covered hers again. “Please. I need to go home.”

  She just needed her room. Her cottage. A place to hide.

  Elaine put her purse on the table, and withdrew a card, handing it over to Owen. “Dr. Taylor’s number, Sheriff. May I say one more thing? Please. If you know anything about me, you know the last thing I would be trying to do is override Daralyn’s will.”

  Owen picked up the card. Daralyn felt his regard, though she was looking at anything in the room rather than him. But she clutched Elaine’s hand, so afraid Elaine would pull away and it would be the last time she’d ever let Daralyn touch her.

  Owen nodded at last, giving Elaine permission to continue.

  “You know where Daralyn is if you need to question her further. And I truly believe Dr. Taylor can explain the situation better.” Elaine sighed. “Hayworth grew up with Rory and Thomas. You may already know he has substance abuse problems. I’m certain they interfered with his judgment in a shameful way tonight, but he doesn’t have the kind of meanness that would have him forcing himself on a woman he knows doesn’t want his attentions. Angry as Rory is with him, he knows that, too.”

  “And how do you know that?” the sheriff asked.

  “If he did have that kind of meanness, my sons would have beaten him half to death before you could get to him.” Elaine didn’t blink.

  Owen rubbed a hand across his face, looking between the two of them. Daralyn could tell he was undecided as to whether he’d done his duty. The dull ache inside her was expanding, taking up her air. She was going to start hyperventilating, drawing more attention to herself.

  Music started filtering in through the walls, a heavy bass thump that she felt through the soles of her wedge heels.

  “Sounds like they got the party going again. All right.” Owen rose. “I’ll go talk to Hayworth, and call you if I need anything further.” He flicked Dr. Taylor’s card between his fingers, but then he pulled out his own card, slid it across the table until it was in front of Daralyn. “If there’s anything else you need to tell us, Miss Moss, don’t hesitate to call.”

  “Yes. Thank you. I’m fine.”

  His gaze rested on her. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, in a tone that said he didn’t think she was fine. At all.

  She remained in the chair as Owen left and Elaine stepped out into the hallway to speak with Rory, Marcus and Thomas. They were talking in low voices.

  Daralyn thought of Rory’s expression when he’d first seen them. Haywood’s hands on her. Hurt, anger…then the realization that she hadn’t wanted Hayworth’s hands on her, but she couldn’t tell him no.

  It had torn her apart inside, watching him understand that in a way she didn’t think he had before. That changed things, didn’t it? And not just for him.

  She belonged to him, yet she hadn’t told Haywood that. She’d been frozen, even Rory’s hold not enough to thaw it.

  She’d thought it would be. She’d convinced herself it would be, like a vase sitting on a shelf, believing it couldn’t be broken because it had never fallen off the shelf before.

  Now she’d never felt so broken in her entire life, sitting here like an inanimate doll in her dress and sparkling jewelry. A tangled ball of embarrassment, pain and shame rested within her. When the night had started, she’d come to the party on Rory’s arm. His girlfriend, in pretty clothes, with the right hair and makeup. She’d danced with him, and people looked at her the way anyone was looked at, when people liked seeing two people together, in love, having fun.

  Then this had happened, and now everyone remembered who she was. The thin, dirty, practically mute girl taken out of a rundown house. The kind to be pitied, whispered about.

  She hadn’t realized she knew what pride was, but she suspected the stinging in her gut was something like that.

  Mostly she was tired. She wanted to go home, to her cottage, close the door, lie down on her bed, pull the covers over her head. Believing she’d come so far and then realizing she’d never really left the spot where she’d been standing was like a cruel joke she’d played on herself.

  That part she could handle, eventually. The problem was she’d played it on the people who had offered her their home, their hearts. She’d let everyone down. Rory deserved better. Far better.

  She rose, moved toward the door. Elaine had left it open while standing in the threshold, probably so she could keep Daralyn in sight. Now she turned as Daralyn reached it, saw past her to where Rory was, Marcus and Thomas. Rory’s gaze immediately latched onto her. He looked so handsome tonight, particularly now, when he wore just the dress shirt and loosened tie, his hair tousled over his forehead, his eyes full of so much life and emotion.

  One deputy was still in the hallway. Owen was in with the other one, talking to a nervous-looking Hayworth who she could see through the upper pane of glass in the classroom door. She wondered if the lone deputy stood near that door to give Owen and Hayworth privacy, or to ensure, if and when Hayworth emerged, that Rory would let Hayworth return to the party in one piece. Or go home.

  Hayworth probably wanted to go home now, too.

  She didn’t know the deputy guarding the door, but his expression said he didn’t know what to make of her. Was she a liar who liked getting men into trouble? Or was she simply…not capable, when it came to a situation like this. Rory had described her that way.

  Either way, the deputy looked at her as if she couldn’t be trusted. She put her hand on Elaine, a brief touch before she slipped past her and began to walk down the hall, away from all of them. Her skirt slipped against her legs, light as a breeze.

  “Daralyn?” Rory caught up to her in a few heartbeats. “Where are you going?”

  “Home,” she said, not looking at him. “I need to go home.”

  “Okay. But the parking lot’s out the other exit. This just leads to the bus lot.”

  “I’ll walk home.”

  “Daralyn, it’s eight miles and it’s nearly ten o’clock.”

  “It’s okay.”

  The roads were quiet here, safe. She’d walked them at night plenty of times since she’d moved into her cottage. She often walked the perimeter of the fields, the side roads, when she couldn’t sleep.

  No one knew that. Well, except Marcus. He didn’t sleep much either. When he and Thomas were at the North Carolina house, he sometimes followed her, at a distance, giving her privacy, but watching out for her.

  She saw deer when she walked, bobcats and coyotes hunting, foxes slinking through the brush. In the country, there was a whole world at night most people never saw. She moved through it, unnoticed and unbothered, because she wasn’t their prey, and she was nothing for the prey to fear. She stood between both worlds, a presence like a tree or a pond. She liked that feeling. Nothing demanding.

  “Daralyn.” Rory maneuvered decisively in front of her, brought her to a stop. She stared at one wheel, and he put his hand out, gripped her wrist above her bracelet.

  Her heart cried out in actual pain, though no one could hear it except her. She couldn’t feel his touch the way she normally did. Her skin was aware something was against it, but she felt no reaction. It was a loss she couldn’t bear.

  She wondered if that was what it was like when someone touched his legs.

  She wanted Rory. So much. She’d relied on him to understand what she wanted and needed, and he did. She hadn’t really realized until this moment that it wouldn’t be enough to let her love him the way he deserved. It didn’t matter what she wanted when she was in darkness, her voice taken away. How could she find her way through that darkness? How did she find a light in herself that might have been extinguished long ago?

  “You are not walking home by yourself,” he said firmly. “I’ll take you home.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to stay with you.”

  She kept her eyes on his wheel. “I’m going to call Dr. Taylor and talk to her.”

  “That’s good.” He sounded slightly relieved. “Sounds great. I’ll hang out at Marcus and Thomas’s, if you need privacy while you do that.”

  She didn’t say anything, but if her silence ended up convincing him that was the thing to do, that would work.

  Because by morning, she knew she’d be gone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rory sat at Thomas and Marcus’s living room window, watching Daralyn. From this vantage point, he could see through her picture window in front. She’d dialed Dr. Taylor while in her kitchen, sat straight in her chair as she held the phone to her ear. She was on it for a while. Sometimes talking, sometimes listening. She didn’t give much away, her body and manner rigid, as if she held something in a tight grip, all her focus on not letting it go.

  He was aware of Thomas and Marcus moving around, keeping an eye on him. But he had eyes only for her.

  Eventually, she put down her phone, took a breath. She looked toward him. He was sitting in a darkened room, because he hadn’t wanted her to feel like he was spying on her. But he hoped she was looking toward the house because she was looking for him. Before he could back up and head for the door, his phone rang.

  He wanted it to be her, but she wasn’t holding a phone. It was Dr. Taylor.

  “You’ve had an eventful evening.” The doc’s voice had its usual professional tone, but there was a thicker softness to it, maybe because she was at home, not in her office. People used different voices depending on where they were. Home, work, in the grocery store. Daytime, nighttime.

  Right now, the place and time he was at in his head, he was sure his voice was all kinds of rough and on the edge of some not-stable things.

  When he’d watched Hayworth talk to Owen, so many things had gone through his mind. If Rory could have reached him, he would have hit him, and kept hitting, until the man was nothing but bloody meat. Fortunately, his brother and Marcus had kept him from that course of action. Brick had taken Hayworth back to his hotel and would get him sobered up.

  “He’ll probably want to call you tomorrow and apologize,” Brick had said in parting. “You know how he is after he comes down.”

  “Don’t let him. Not this time. I don’t want to talk to him. Not now, and possibly not for the rest of our lives.”

  He’d pushed past that. It was still true, but whatever happened with his tragically fucked up teammate wasn’t even on his radar. It was in the past, except for how it was affecting Daralyn’s present.

  “Congratulations on your award,” Dr. Taylor continued. “Daralyn told me.”