Southern Heat by Natasha Madison

Chapter 21

Quinn

I watch her walk back to her bedroom with her head hanging down. The look on her face when she was telling me about wasting food was more than I could take. I wanted to take the whole pie and throw it in the trash to make her see that I didn’t care. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could prepare me for that look. I put the pie away and sit on the couch, the whole time listening to see if she calls for me.

When Amelia gets home after midnight, she just waves and goes to her bedroom. I get up, turning off the light, and I walk to Willow’s room. I poke my head in there and find her sleeping on her side in a fetal position, and she is still wearing the clothes that she came home in.

I walk into the room as quietly as I can so as not to wake her and grab the blanket, placing it on her. I did the same thing this afternoon, afraid she would get cold.

Making my way back to the couch, I grab my own blanket, and I fall asleep until the sound of my alarm wakes me. I open my eyes and look at it, seeing it’s five fifteen. Going to my bedroom, I walk straight to the closet and slip on my blue jeans and a black T-shirt. I walk out and stop in my tracks when I see her standing in the middle of the room. She looks like she is going to bolt. “Hey," I whisper, and she turns around. “Did I wake you?"

"No," she says. “I was …" She looks at me. “Where are you going?"

With a smile, I go over and grab my boots. “To the barn." I slip them on and then look at her. “You want to come?"

"To the barn?" she asks, her eyes going big.

"Yeah," I say. “You might not come back with white jeans, but we can always throw them in the wash.” I walk to the closet at the front door and grab a pair of sneakers I bought for her. "Let me go get you a pair of socks." I hand her the sneakers and go back into her room. Her black bag sitting in the middle of the bed makes me stop. Was she going to leave? I wonder, going to grab a pair of socks and then head back out to her.

“Were you going to leave?” I ask. She looks at me, the color draining from her face. “You were going to leave?”

“I was,” she admits. “I’ve taken enough of your generosity.”

“Where were you going to go?” I ask, trying to remain calm.

“I didn’t have anything planned, to be honest,” she says, setting down the shoes.

"Well, you aren’t allowed to leave town," I remind her. I don’t bother telling her that Jacob called me yesterday to tell me that she has been cleared of all wrongdoing, and she is, in fact, free to leave.

"I wasn’t going to leave town exactly," she admits, and I hold the socks out for her.

"Here.” I hand her the socks and then turn to walk to the fridge. “Did you even think about how anyone would feel?"

She looks at me, and I know that I should slow down and bring my voice down a bit. “Did you think about how I would feel coming in and seeing you gone? Or Amelia?"

"No.” She avoids looking at me. “The only thing I thought about was not putting anything extra on your plate. You have a business to run,” she huffs out. “And Amelia has two jobs, so the last thing she needs is to babysit me." She bends as she slips on the shoes.

"I didn’t think of anyone but myself," she answers. Seeing the tears she must have wiped away when she bent down, I hate knowing I made her cry. But the thought of her out there without anyone knowing is just too much. "I didn’t think about anyone else because, for the past fifteen years of my life, I’ve only had to worry about one person and one person only, myself." The burning in my stomach comes out of nowhere, along with the pain in my chest. “But for the first time, I was thinking about someone else." She doesn’t give me a chance to say anything. “Which way do we go? From the front or the back."

"We should take the golf cart,” I say and turn to walk toward a part of the house I didn’t show her. “This is the way to the garage,” I say when she walks slowly behind me.

I turn the light on and open the garage door. She gets into the cart, and I slip in behind her. "By the way." I look over at her. “The house is wired, so it would have alerted me had you opened the door.”

“Well, then there goes my plan to escape quietly into the night,” she says as she looks ahead.

We pull up to the barn, and I look over at her. “Welcome to Barnes Therapy." I get out and wait for her to get out. “You are seeing behind the scenes."

I walk over to one of the red doors and pull it open. I walk in a bit and turn on the lights. "This is all yours?" she says from beside me. Her eyes are wide as she looks around.

"This is one of them,” I say, walking in. “First thing I do when I come in," I say, “is start the coffee for my team."

"How many team members do you have?" she asks softly.

"At this location, I have about ten,” I say. “Do you want a tour?"

She tries to hide her smile, but it comes out anyway when she nods her head. “Follow me,” I say, turning to go to the closed door. “This is the office." I open the door and walk in to where an L-shaped desk sits in the middle of the room. She steps in and turns to look at the pictures covering the wall. "That is every person who has attended my therapy classes. There is more in the other offices also."

"You helped all these people?" she whispers, her hand going to her mouth.

"Yeah,” I say, putting my hands on my hips. “I guess I did."

"You don’t see it." She turns to me. “But it all makes sense."

"What does?" I look at her confused.

"Why you couldn’t just leave me there,” she says, and I don’t want to get into this with her. I know she isn’t ready for what I have to say, and I know that she has to heal first.

"You ready to meet some of my girls?" I ask, and she just looks at me. “The girls.” I walk out and look over my shoulder to see her coming out and following me. “Usually, there is more light in here,” I say as she walks down the gray concrete. “But in the morning, I only turn on the lights that lead down the path.

"There are ten stalls in this one,” I say, pointing down the hall where five stalls are located on each side. Each stall has a cast-iron gate with the names written on the top of each door. I walk past each one. "This is Prada, Misty, Ivy, Daisy, Sugar, Holly, Sierra, Poppy, Luna, and my newest girl," I say, pointing at the last stall, “Hope."

"What exactly do you do here?" she asks.

"There are really five different types of therapy that I work with,” I say as I walk into one of the stalls, and she stays outside. "Horseback riding helps with posture and muscle tone as well as coordination." I talk to her about the different types of therapy, and she listens to every single word, walking from one stall to the next as the horses come to the door. "You can touch them if you want,” I say.

"What type of therapy would you recommend for someone like me?" She turns to me. “Someone who was mentally and physically abused and left for dead,” she says, and I stop breathing. “Someone who begged every single day to die so their suffering would stop." She doesn’t look at me as she walks to the next stall, and her voice remains even. “Someone who went twelve days without eating because I refused to forge a bank paper to get my money early so they could spend it." I was wrong before. This right here is the hardest thing I will ever have to hear. “Someone who couldn’t even tell her birth mother what her fears were because she would help him and make them come true." My whole body goes rigid. “Someone who couldn’t admit when they were cold or hungry or thirsty because it would mean I would get none of those things. Someone who would have to shower in a gas station bathroom sink and not a nice bathroom either. I’m talking about the ones where people shoot up heroin and leave their needles behind. Someone who would sleep with toilet paper in her ears for fear that cockroaches would crawl inside them. Someone who is woken up in the middle of the night and told that we are going and the only thing you can pack is two pairs of jeans and a T-shirt, which is why I always have a bag packed. Someone who doesn’t even know what lemonade tastes like because all she could get is water. Someone who can’t even admit to this day that there are good people out there, especially when it’s right in front of my face." She turns, and I see the tears streaming down her face. I just look at her, unable to answer because of the lump in my throat the size of a fucking soccer ball. "What type of therapy would you give that person?"

I stare at her when I say the next words, knowing maybe she isn’t ready for it, but knowing that there is no better time. “Everything."