The bus wasn’t as bad as Luanne had expected. It was clean, and had movies and Wi-Fi, not that the last would help them since they didn’t have a smart electronic device to their name. They’d purchased a disposable phone to have in case of an emergency, but it was a flip phone, for crying out loud.

She needed to call her grandmother, who was probably in a complete tizzy by now. Not that she’d really be worried about her welfare, but it always sent the woman over the edge when she didn’t fall in line and behave like she was supposed to.

“I guess I should call my grandmother.” She set aside the bag of snacks they’d bought and held her hand out for the phone.

“What about your dad?” He dug the device from his pocket.

“He won’t be there. He doesn’t spend a lot of time with her.”

“Gigi, it’s Luanne.”

“Luanne. Where are you? You need to get home right now. Your daddy is torn up about all of this.”

“I’m not coming home, Gigi. I only called to let you know that I’m okay.” She picked at a loose thread on her jeans.

“I’m sure you are, since you’re gallivantin’ all over creation with a man other than your fiancé. Honestly, Luanne, have you given any thought to what people are sayin’ about us? I’m not going to be able to show my face in town ever again.”

“Gigi, Marcus—”

“Don’t you call your daddy by his first name, it’s disrespectful.”

“Marcus,” she ground the word out for emphasis, “made a deal with Doug. He wants Doug’s father’s company’s business, Doug wants to be the CEO and needs a respectable wife to get Mr. Divan’s approval. I was the bargaining chip. He sold me to the highest bidder, Gigi.”

“Oh.”

There was a silent pause. Maybe this was what her grandmother needed to remove the blinders from her sight when it came to her son.

“Please. You’re so dramatic, Luanne. Sell you to the highest bidder, indeed.”

Then again, maybe not.

“I don’t know where you get all of this drama from. It certainly wasn’t from me. I guess you’re more like your mother than either of us thought you were.”

That cut deep. Gigi knew exactly how to bring her in line, and any comparison to her mother was sure to elicit the response she wanted.

But not this time.

“Gigi, he doesn’t care about me.”

“Luanne, you’re a spoiled girl who’s been given every opportunity because of the generosity of your father, and you’re being horribly ungrateful. All he asked you to do was one little thing, and you couldn’t even do that.” Her voice quaked with anger.

The part of Luanne that was conditioned to be grateful for any tiny morsel of affection and acceptance from her family wanted to back down from this fight. She pulled on her short black hair.

Not this time. Not this time.

“One little thing? For the love of God, Gigi, he lied to me to get me to marry someone so he could gain a professional advantage. That’s not love.” She sucked down a lungful of air to offset the threat of tears. “I can’t believe you can’t see that.”

Then it hit her. Her grandmother knew. She knew and had gone along with the plan. “You knew, didn’t you Gigi?”

“I certainly did.” She could see the woman sit up straighter and jut her chin in the air, like she always did when she got defensive. “It was what was best for all of us, and now you’ve gone and ruined it. I want you home by tomorrow. Maybe we can still salvage this deal like a real family.”

Lies. All lies. When will I ever fucking learn? The last remnant of family swirled down the toilet. She was alone.

“When can I expect you back, Luanne? I want to be able to tell your father, he’ll be so excited.” The manic tone of the woman’s voice was confirmation of all that Luanne had just worked out. She’d be able to present Luanne to her father like a prized turkey.

“I’m not coming back, Gigi.” She hated the defeated tone of her voice. “And when I do come home, I won’t marry Doug, I won’t be Marcus’s pawn, and I won’t see you.”

“I have never—”

She couldn’t listen anymore. “Goodbye, Gigi.”

She handed the phone back to Jack without making eye contact. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry.”

His sincerely spoken words were almost her undoing. She waved his comment away and pulled on the mask of indifference. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve always known how it was.” That was a lie.

A big, huge lie.

* * *

Jack had wished for a few things in the last couple of minutes. One, that he could’ve given Luanne some privacy during that conversation, if only to protect her pride. Two, he wanted to pummel Marcus Price, and then do it again. The man was truly a pimple on the butt of humanity. Three, if he could get to her, he’d wring Gigi’s neck. The hurt that stained Luanne’s face was enough to make him homicidal. And four, he wished Luanne would let him comfort her.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He knew it was a loaded question, but he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t heard anything. He wasn’t that good of an actor.

“Not really.”

“I understand.” It’d been a long shot, but he had to ask.

She turned her sad sapphire gaze to his. “What’s wrong with me, Jack?”

“Absolutely nothing,” he said with as much confidence as he could muster.

“Sure seems like there’s something wrong with me. I can’t ever seem to do enough for my family.”

He couldn’t take it anymore. She might bite his arm off, but he had to try. Cautiously, so as not to spook her, he slipped his arm around her shoulder. When she didn’t try to gut him, he drew her to him and kissed the top of her head. She smelled like fresh rain and a lifetime of disappointment. “Tell me about it, Luanne. We’ve got a long bus ride together and I’m already bored.”

She gave a sad laugh into his chest. “Well, by all means, let me ease your boredom with stories of my sad childhood.”

“Was it all sad?”

She sucked in a huge gulp of air, and he thought that maybe he should’ve started with a more benign question.

“Not when I was with Scarlett and her family.”

“I’m sorry.”

That seemed to be all the comfort she could stand, because she pulled away from him and scrubbed her face with her hands, shook back her hair, and almost, but not quite, succeeded in pulling on the mask of badassness she wore all of the time.

“Nothing for you to be sorry about. It was my messed-up universe, and at the center of the whole screwed-up thing is Marcus Price.” She threaded her fingers together in her lap. “My mother and Marcus started dating right after she graduated from high school. He was five years older than her and she worshipped the ground he walked on. When I say dating, I use that word loosely. They snuck around and hooked up for a while. My mother wasn’t acceptable dating material for someone like Marcus Price.”

“Was he still living in Zachsville?”

“No. He’d just graduated from college and was living in Austin, so they didn’t see each other that often. To hear my mother tell it, it was exciting and adventurous. He’d sweep into town, pick her up, and off they’d go to some motel. It’s sad really, that she could call something like that a real relationship.” Luanne wiped at her eyes. “Anyway, they’d been together about six months when she got pregnant. I have no idea if it was an accident or she did it intentionally. Either way, he freaked when she told him, and broke it off immediately.”

“Dick.”

She laughed, but there wasn’t an ounce of humor in it. “Yes, well, he can be that, but he can also be persuasive and charming. He wanted her to get an abortion, but—”

“She told you that?”

She picked at the label on her water bottle. “No. He told me when I was eight, and Gigi insisted he take me to the circus. It’s one of the few memories I have of us doing anything together. Evidently, he had to change some important plans to be able to go, and he felt I needed to know that if he’d had his way, I would’ve never been born.”

“I’m so sorry.” What do you say to counter growing up with a monster like that?

“The thing is, he has this way of saying terrible things and you think he’s being nice until later when you replay the conversation in your head. It screws with you. I didn’t even know what an abortion was. I had to look it up when I got home.”

Horror raced through his veins. He tried as hard as he could to keep it off his face—she would hate his pity. “What kind of sick bastard says that to a kid?”

She continued like she hadn’t even heard him. “When I told my mother, she swore he was lying. But when I pressed her about it, she actually defended him. He’d left her pregnant, penniless, and humiliated for years, and she still defended him.” She snorted. “Then she asked if he’d said anything about her.”

This was all kinds of fucked up, and his heart broke for her. “Some people’s capacity for narcissism is unbelievable.”

“She asked me that every time I saw him, which wasn’t often, and he never came to the house to get me. Gigi always picked me up, and you should’ve seen the two of them, Mama and Gigi, clucking over me, making sure my dress was cute, my hair was combed, and my hands were clean.” She pulled her legs into the seat and snuggled into the corner. “I’d get a lecture from my mother to be sweet and pleasant, to not make trouble and do what my daddy said. Then I’d get the same lecture from Gigi. They’d both tell me how much my daddy loved me and how glad he was going to be to see me, but when I was with him it always felt off. Oh, he said all the right things, but he wasn’t like they said he would be. It was…what’s the word?”

“Abusive.”

“No. I was never abused. No one ever laid a hand on me.” She snapped her fingers. “Mixed signals. Those kinds of mixed signals mess with your head.”

“And you don’t call that abuse?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous, Jack. I was cared for, no one hurt me or left me alone for days on end like poor Gavin.”

Not true, if what she’d told him was accurate. A million statements ran through his head, but he stayed silent, and let her talk.

“My mom was young and desperate. And Gigi, well, he’s her son.” She shrugged. “I don’t think they could help it.”

Bullshit. But he wouldn’t say it out loud. Somehow he knew she wasn’t ready to hear that yet. “What happened to your mom?”

She glanced out the window. “She died of a broken heart. For years she hung onto the hope that Marcus would come back, then we heard he was engaged, and she couldn’t take it.”

“She committed suicide?”

“Not outright. But she wasted away to nothing and died in her sleep one night. I was nine. After that, I went to live with Gigi.”

“That’s horrible, Luanne.”

“Yeah, it is. Loving Marcus Price sucked the life out of her.”

“I don’t really get the dynamic between you, your grandmother, and Marcus.” He adjusted his long legs to try to make them fit better in the small space.

“It’s not that complicated. As you know, Marcus’s treatment of women is abysmal, and that includes his mother. But it’s candy-coated cruelty. He leaves you in a haze of false adoration. Like I said, you don’t know you’ve been conned, charmed, or lied to until he’s long gone.”

“He must be really good, because you see straight through my bullshit.”

“Oh, I’m probably the biggest sucker around when it comes to him.” She rubbed her temples like she could dislodge some memory. “I was never in love with Doug.”

“Thank God. Otherwise I’d have to have your head examined.”

She gave a mirthless laugh. “Yeah, well. I didn’t lie to you about why I was marrying him though. My dad convinced me that he wanted me taken care of when he was gone. That it was good for me to have someone like Doug, who could provide for me. I bought every ounce of his bullshit. Lapped it up with a spoon. It’s humiliating to think a few crumbs of affection could make me lose my mind.”

Jack shrugged. “He’s your dad. I’m sure on some level he meant what he said.”

She picked at a loose piece of leather on the armrest. “I told you the reason I ran from the wedding was that I saw Doug with another woman.”

“Yes.”

“That was true—I did see him with his girlfriend—but I ran because of what Marcus did.”

He nodded. “I heard.” Was there more to this sick, sad story?

Her hands clenched then unclenched in her lap. “Not only had he given me to Doug, he told my fiancé he could have all the girlfriends he wanted after we were married.”

“Are you kidding me?” Rage crackled within him. He’d find a way to make Marcus Price pay for what he’d done to this beautiful woman.

“When I confronted him about it, he denied it. Said there’s no way he would’ve done that. He was so sweet and caring, I began to believe I was mistaken. I know what I heard, Jack. But for a minute I questioned my memory. That’s why I can’t go back right now. I’m afraid I won’t be able to tell him no. Not yet. I’m getting stronger though—there’s no way I would’ve spoken to Gigi like that a week ago.”

He squeezed her knee. “Progress.”

She gave a half laugh. “Yeah. Anyway, he can barely be around Gigi or me for longer than a day. But she’s always believed him and hoped we’d be a real family someday. And if I’m honest, so have I.” She looked up at him and the pain written on her face nearly knocked him out of his seat. “Pretty sad, right?”

He took her face in his hands and looked her square in the eye. “They’re the losers in this tale, Luanne. In spite of everything, you are loyal, kind, and brilliant. It’s them I feel sorry for, because they’re so blinded by their own selfishness that they can’t see the amazing person you are.”

She tried to dip her head, but he wouldn’t let her. “I mean it, Luanne.”

“Thank you.” Her dark lashes fluttered.

This time when she tried to look away, he let her. He knew how hard it was for someone like her to admit this stuff to him.

“Scarlett says the same thing to me. If it hadn’t been for her and her family there’s no telling where I would’ve ended up. The only real love I’ve ever known is from Scarlett, and my only example of how a family should treat each other is from her family.”

He made a mental note to hug Scarlett the next time he saw her. “You spent a lot of time with them?”

“Every chance I could, especially after I went to live with Gigi.” She pulled two long Twizzlers from the pack and handed one to him. Then she gave him a look of disbelief. “I can’t believe I told you all of that.”

“Frankly, I can’t either, but I’m glad you did. I swear it stays between us.” He held up his Twizzler.

She smiled and tapped her candy to his. Something warm and luscious rippled under his ribs, and it made him happier than he’d ever been.