Her Forgotten Betrayal(57)

She’d been alone ever since.

Cole’s expression was unreadable. “The sheriff told me you’d given a statement that implicated me in Sebastian’s death.” His jaw clenched as he spoke in the same emotionless tone he’d used when he’d first shown up at the mansion. “That I’d caught your brother spying on us in the barn, and we fought again, and when the fire started I trapped him in the stall where they found his body and made you run away with me, when you’d wanted to stay and help him.”

Shaw’s body jerked at the awful image his words painted. She shook her head, sending her curls flying into her face. “I wouldn’t have said that. I don’t remember much after you left me here at the house, except that my father ordered me to my room and threatened to sic the sheriff on you if I dared to see you again.” She fought the darkness in her mind, but she couldn’t recall clearly anything that had happened after that point. “But I wouldn’t have accused you of hurting Sebastian.”

“There’s no official statement on file,” he said. “It’s entirely possible your old man made the whole thing up and used his connections to frame me. But it was enough for them to formally charge me while I was too weak and too drugged up to defend myself. Of course my old man was nowhere to be found by then, probably off somewhere getting his drunk on because he couldn’t deal with the entire damn county thinking I’d killed their precious golden boy, after deflowering the Cassidy princess.”

She winced at his description of her. Not that he was wrong. “And I stayed away, too.” She hadn’t been able to sleep or eat. She’d let everything slip away, losing herself in a crippling depression. She hadn’t been nearly strong enough to keep Cole, just like in her last nightmare. “While you thought I blamed you for everything.”

“We were young.” His indifferent shrug punished her far worse than the angry explosion he deserved to throw at her. “It was a long time ago.”

“I came looking for you.” That much she could recall.

It was too little, too late, but she wanted him to know. She couldn’t remember much from after that time, after she’d finally pulled herself together and out of her bedroom. Nothing else was coming back…except for that one afternoon, almost as if her mind knew she needed to see it, so she could tell Cole.

It was the last time she’d run through the woods toward him. It was the day she’d learned she’d have to live without him for the rest of her life.

“I finally confronted my father and made him tell me what was going on. He was so angry still. Until then, I’d had no idea how badly you’d been hurt or that you’d been accused of killing Bastian. Father was tossing things in his office, ripping the room apart. He’d been told you were released from the hospital that morning. The sheriff had called to say the charges against you were dropped due to lack of evidence. The ruckus my father was making was what finally got through to me. I made him tell me everything, all of it, and I ran out of the house before he could stop me.”

“Why?” Cole’s voice was empty. “It had been weeks, Shaw. You hadn’t thought of me in weeks.”

“I thought of you every day.” She’d needed him so much, it had devastated her. Needing anything during that awful time had felt like dying herself. Through Sebastian’s death, she’d faced all over again the reality of how easily things, people, could slip away right before her eyes. Her mother. Her grandmother. And even her hateful brother. “I was terrified of losing you, too.”

“So you pushed me away?”

“I was afraid.”

“You were a scared little girl.”

“Yes.” The accusation stung, but it was the truth. Him leaving her, not giving her a chance to come to her senses, had felt like a betrayal, too. One she’d never recovered from. But she’d brought it on herself. “I should have been there for you, like you had been for me. But as soon as I could, as soon as I found out you were in trouble, I ran to you, Cole. I never said those things to the sheriff.”

“You ran to me?” His expression softened.

“But you were already gone.”

He nodded. “When I was released from the hospital, I walked away from High Lake and never looked back. My old man didn’t want me in his life, and the sentiment was mutual.”

“And you didn’t want me anymore, either.”

He nodded again. “That’s what I told myself. I couldn’t stomach the thought that you’d blamed me for what happened to your brother. If you didn’t want to see me again, I could live with that. But I couldn’t stand hearing you say it. I couldn’t bear—”