"I'm not fragile!" Carrington said indignantly, huddling closer to Gage's side until he put a hand on her shoulder.
"You're not even wearing your helmet. You know better than to do something like this without it."
Gage's face was expressionless. "You want me to take the line down?"
"No!" Carrington shouted at me, tears springing to her eyes. "You never let me have any fun. You're not fair. I'm going to play on the zip line and you can't tell me not to. You're not my mom!"
"Hey, hey.. .shorty." Gage's voice had gentled. "Don't talk to your sister like that."
"Great," I snapped. "Now I'm the bad guy. Screw you, Gage. I don't need you to defend me. you—" I raised my hands in a defensive gesture, wrists stiff. A cold wind struck me in the face, needling the inner corners of my eyes, and I realized I was about to cry. I looked at the two of them standing together, and I heard Churchill call my name.
Me against the three of them.
I turned away abruptly, hardly able to see through the bitter slick of tears. Time to retreat. I walked with fast, digging strides. As I passed the man in the wheelchair, I growled, "You're in trouble too, Churchill," without breaking pace.
By the time I reached the warm sanctuary of the kitchen, I was cold to the bone. I sought out the darkest, most sheltered part of the kitchen, the narrow recessed niche of the butler's pantry. The space was lined with glass-fronted china cabinets. I didn't stop until I was hidden at the back of it. I wrapped my arms around myself, shrinking, trying to take up as little physical space as possible.
Every instinct screamed that Carrington was mine, and no one had the right to dispute my judgments. I had taken care of her. sacrificed for her. You're not my mom. Ingrate! Traitor! I wanted to stomp outside and tell her how easy it would have been for me to give her away after Mama died, how much better off I might have been. Mama...oh, I wished I could take back all the hateful things my teenage self had said to her. Now I understood the injustice of parenting. Try to keep them healthy and safe, and you got blame instead of gratitude, rebellion instead of cooperation.
Someone came into the kitchen. I heard the door close. I held still, praying I wouldn't have to talk to anyone. But a dark shadow moved through the unlit kitchen, too substantial to belong to anyone other than Gage.
"Liberty?"
After that I couldn't remain hiding in silence. "I don't want to talk," I said sullenly.
Gage filled the narrow entrance of the butler's pantry. Cornering me. The shadows were so thick, I couldn't see his face.
And then he said the one thing I would never have expected him to say.
"I'm sorry."
Anything else would have bolstered my anger. But those two words caused tears to spill over the wind-stung rims of my eyes. I ducked my head and let out a shuddery sigh. "It's fine. Where's Carrington?"
"Dad's talking to her." Gage came to me in a couple of measured strides. "You were right. About everything. I told Carrington she has to wear a helmet from now on. And I just lowered the line a couple feet." A short pause. "I should have asked you before putting it up. It won't happen again."
He had an absolute gift for surprising me. I would have thought he'd be scathing, argumentative. The tightness left my throat. I lifted my head, the darkness thinning until I could see the outline of his head. The scent of outdoors clung to him. wind laced with ozone, dry grass, something sweet like freshly cut wood.
"I'm overprotective," I said.
"Of course you are," Gage said reasonably. "That's your job. If you weren't—" He
broke off with a sharp indrawn breath as he saw a glitter of moisture on my cheek. "Shit. No, no: don't do that." He turned to a set of drawers in the pantry, fumbled until he found a pressed napkin. "Damn it, Liberty, don't. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I put up that fucking zip line. I'll take it down right away." Gage, usually so deft, was unaccountably clumsy as he blotted my cheeks with the soft folded linen.
"No." I said, sniffling, "I want the line to s-stay up."
"Okay. Okay. Whatever you want. Anything. Just don't cry."
I took the napkin from him and blew my nose and sighed shakily. "I'm sorry I exploded out there. I shouldn't have overreacted."
He hovered, paused, shifted like a restless animal in a cage. "You spend half your life taking care of her, protecting her, and then one day some asshole is shooting her across the yard on a line five feet off the ground with no helmet. Of course you'd be pissed."
"It's just...she's all I've got. And if anything ever happened to her—" My throat constricted but I forced myself to continue. "I've known for a long time that Carrington needs a man's influence in her life, but I don't want her to get involved with you and Churchill because this won't last forever, us being here, and that's why—"