Buttons and Blame by Penelope Sky

Author:Penelope Sky
Language: eng
Format: epub

* * *

We’d finished an afternoon wine tasting, and now Pearl and I were cleaning up. We didn’t speak to each other much because we were busy attending to the tables inside the warehouse. Most of the customers asked us what it was like to live in such a beautiful place. Pearl had better responses than I did. I’d only been there for about a month and had done limited sight-seeing.

But I was grateful I got to do any sight-seeing at all—thanks to Cane.

Pearl corked the leftover wine and put the bottles in the fridge.

I wondered what her life would be like after I was gone. Would she keep working here? Would she have a family to raise? “Pearl?”

“Yeah, honey?” She scooped up the leftover wineglasses on the counter and set them in the sink.

I approached the bar and leaned the broom against the counter. “Are you and Crow going to have kids anytime soon?”

“Soon?” she asked. “No. Definitely not soon.”

“But you guys are going to have them someday?”

She rinsed the glasses with soap and water, her eyes on her hands. “I would like to. Crow is open to the idea but not in love with it.”

“He’s not a family kind of guy?” I’d always wanted a family of my own. I wanted to have three children. I didn’t care if they were girls or boys, as long as they were healthy. I wanted to have a house near the ocean so I could take my kids to the beach every day.

“He doesn’t think he is. But he definitely is.” She set the glasses on the counter beside her and dried them with the towel. “He and Cane are so close, and he’s never gotten over losing Vanessa.”

“Who’s Vanessa?”

“Their sister.” She eyed me as she gently cleaned the glass. “You don’t know about Vanessa?”

“I think Cane mentioned her once…”

“Well…the man that took me captive…he’s the one who killed her. He kept her as a prisoner, and before Cane and Crow could rescue her, he shot her. Both of them have never really gotten over it.”

My heart broke for the woman I never knew, for the woman who shared the same fate I was about to accept. Cane possessed a particular darkness that had nothing to do with his criminal preferences.

He was heartbroken.

“I’m surprised he never told you that,” she whispered.

Since I was in the same position, he probably didn’t want to scare me, to remind of the fate I was about to experience. “He and I don’t do a lot of talking…” It was mostly kissing and touching, among other things.

She dried the last glass before she put it off to the side. “Adelina, can I ask you something?”

She was my only friend in the world. She could ask me anything. “Of course.”

“Are you in love with him?” She looked me square in the eye, watching even the slightest reaction I made.

The question took me by surprise. I thought she would ask me about going back to Tristan, about how I felt about it.

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