Or he would distract me, and I would let him.
He pushed me back onto the ground and leaned in for a kiss, hair tumbling across his forehead. His curls had grown out now, even wilder than they used to be. Just before our lips met, I stopped, staring toward the house.
Two people stood on the porch. At that distance, all I could make out was their stature—one tall, one short.
Heath stood, brushing grass off his clothes. “This is private property,” he called out.
Our uninvited guests turned around—in such perfect, graceful sync, I recognized them before getting a glimpse of their faces.
Bella and Garrett Lin.
Chapter 44
“Your hair.” That was the first thing Bella said when she saw me.
A few weeks before, I’d tried to hack off the remaining blond with a pair of dull kitchen shears. I made such a mess of it, Heath insisted on taking me into town for a proper haircut—the only time I’d left the property during our time in seclusion, aside from doctor’s appointments. The hairdresser had tamed it into a pixie cut, the shortest style I’d ever had.
“It suits you,” Bella added. It could have been a compliment or an insult.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“We tried to call,” she said. Garrett stayed silent, shifting his weight back and forth, weatherworn planks creaking under his polished shoes. “We were worried about you.”
Heath had gotten the house’s phone service restored along with the other utilities, but after a week of nonstop phone calls from the press, we’d ripped the cable from the wall. My cellphone was in a drawer somewhere, drained of power, and Heath still didn’t own one.
“We’re fine,” Heath said. He had his arm lashed across me. Protective.
I pushed past him, approaching the twins. “Really, you were worried? So worried, you didn’t bother coming to see me in the hospital?”
Garrett finally spoke up. “We did come to see you.” His voice sounded hoarse, like he hadn’t used it in days.
“What?” I looked at Heath. His jaw was set in a hard line.
“We both came,” Bella said. “We brought you flowers and everything.” She nodded in Heath’s direction. “Hesaid you didn’t want to see us.”
“He was right. I didn’t.”
Heath should have given me the choice, though, instead of making it for me. At the very least, he should have let me know later on about their visit.
I wondered how I would have reacted if I’d seen Bella that night. Maybe I would have screamed in her face and thrown the flowers in the trash. Maybe I would have forgiven her.
I couldn’t know for certain whether she’d collided with me on purpose, but my gut told me she hadn’t. Bella Lin rarelyintendedto hurt anyone. She just didn’t care if she did.
“Can we talk?” Bella asked.
“We’re talking right now.”
She shot a sharp look at Heath. “Alone?”
I suggested taking a walk. Heath and Garrett stayed behind on the porch. “Be nice,” I whispered in Heath’s ear before heading toward the lake. He made a grunting sound that wasn’t exactly agreement, but wasn’t refusal either.
Bella struggled to keep up with my stride across the uneven ground, heels sinking into the soft earth. Her shoes would be ruined. I hoped so anyway.
At the end of the lawn, I clambered onto one of the limestone slabs overlooking the shoreline. Bella gingerly took a seat beside me, on the edge of the rock, tilting her weight onto one hip so the smallest possible part of her made contact.
We both stared out at the horizon. Stratus clouds had blown in to cover the sun, and a hint of winter sharpened the edges of the air again. The water was a silvered mirror.
“I’m really sorry, Kat,” Bella said.
