Page 104 of The Moment He Couldn’t Walk Away

“Control your emotions,” her mother used to say to her. “You have big feelings, Nina, and nothing good will come from letting them control you.”

I hear you, Mom. I’m trying.

How long would it take Finch to calm down enough to come looking for her? She hadn’t been gone long, but he’d want her where he could see her, even if he was angry with her.

“You’re certainly more like me than your mother,” her father said, and there was something almost like pride in his voice, which made her stomach turn. “Perhaps there is hope for us and a future together?”

“No, there isn’t. I want nothing to do with you after you leave here.”

“She’s a fiery one, like I told you,” Amber said.

“And you’re a lying, cheating bitch,” Nina replied, not missing a beat.

Amber’s usually friendly face turned red with anger, her jaw tightening like she wanted to say something back but didn’t dare. Not with her brother standing right there.

“Now, what do you want?”

“A white framed print of your hand and foot prints as a baby. It’s only small, but your mother wouldn’t have left it in the house when she ran away from me,” Falcon said, and for just a moment, his voice lost its polish. There was something underneath it that almost sounded like grief, though Nina wasn’t about to let herself believe that.

“My mother. Your wife, do you mean? Who you lied to and betrayed?” Nina looked at the three people who shared her blood and felt nothing but disgust. Not one drop of the longing she used to carry around like a stone in her pocket. Just disgust.

“Where is the picture?” Kurt demanded, stepping forward, lifting the gun slightly like he thought that might help him get an answer faster.

“I don’t know,” Nina said, holding his gaze steadily. “I’ve seen nothing like that. Mom must have thrown it out.”

“No, she would have kept it,” Dale Falcon insisted. “Your mother was very attached to it.”

“Did you ever love her?” The words were out before she could stop them, and she hated herself a little for asking. Hated that some small, stubborn part of her still wanted to know.

“Of course I loved her. I wouldn’t have married her if I hadn’t, and if someone hadn’t betrayed me, we’d probably still be married and Shirley still unaware of what I do.”

Do.

“Putting millions of dollars of drugs on the streets for kids to take and die, do you mean?”

His mouth tightened. “If I didn’t do it, someone else would.”

She actually laughed at that. “I bet that helps you sleep at night.”

“You know nothing about my life, Nina. You don’t know what it cost me to build what I have or what I’ve done to protect the people who matter to me.”

“The people who matter to you,” she repeated. “Is that why Amber torched my house? Because I matter to you?”

He didn’t answer that, and the silence told her more than any excuse could have. She didn’t matter to him.

“Where is the picture!” Dale Falcon was out of patience, it seemed, raising his voice for the first time, and Nina caught the way Amber and Kurt both went still when he did, like they knew that tone and to be careful around it.

“Not here, so your family’s attempts to destroy my home were for nothing. The other place it could be is with the furniture in storage. I haven’t been there in a while.”

No one would be there now, so she could take them there and away from Lyntacky. Away from anyone else who might get caught up in whatever this turned into. She thought of the neighbors with their new baby two doors down and others on her street, who would thankfully all now be at the tree lighting. She needed to get these villains out of town before that finished.

Finch would come for her. She just had to buy some time.

“Take us there,” her father demanded.

“Please,” Nina said, holding his eyes.

“Now,” he added, like the word hadn’t even registered.