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She couldn’t wait for a shower, especially in Seth’s shower. Knowing him, though, he would withhold sex. Ugh, being infatuated with a man who always did the right thing was horrible.
Infatuated was the word she was using at the moment because she didn’t want to deal with any other feelings.
It took her longer than she had thought it would to get dressed. The fact that she had spent a couple days in bed really didn’t mean anything. Apparently, puncturing your lung wasn’t that easy to recover from.
She heard the murmur of voices in her room. When she stepped out, her father was waiting alone, but he had a wheelchair. She frowned at it but knew they wouldn’t let her goif she refused to be wheeled out in it. Also—and she didn’t want to admit it to anyone—she wasn’t sure she could make it outside under her own power. She was stronger, but she knew it was limited.
Her father waited in that patient way he had. With a sigh and an eye roll, she settled in the chair. He grabbed her bag, setting it on her lap. People waved as she made her way out of the hospital. They all had wanted to meet the woman who had always believed that the cult leader was alive and spent her life tracking him down for justice.
Her main problem was that so many news programs had wanted to get hold of her. They wanted her story, and she didn’t want to deal with it. Thankfully, she had Jin. Through Autumn’s lawyers, she let the news programs know that Jin had the exclusive story.
“You need to ease up on your young man.”
“He’s notthatyoung.”
“Age is relative to the speaker, love. You’re still that skinny sixteen-year-old I met on Maui.”
She sighed as the lift dinged that it had arrived. After waiting for people to depart, he wheeled her on. Thankfully, they were alone.
“He’s feeling responsible.”
“He is.”
“See, you get it.”
“What I understand is that you’re running scared. You told Seth to be patient. If you’re going to break his heart, let him go. No one deserves that.”
She knew that he had loved his wife. From what Ian had said, they had a wonderful relationship. Autumn had been happy to know that her mother hadn’t completely broken him. But every now and then, she knew he thought about the years they hadlost, of never getting to see her first steps, hear her first words. That wound would never really heal.
“I don’t want to hurt him.”
“I know. You never want to hurt anyone. Even that Peter fellow.”
She had known there had been little chance of him surviving a center-mass bullet to the chest, but it still hurt to know that he’d spent his last years on this earth with Joseph. From what they figured out, Peter had killed Freddy. Still, it was sad.
“What if I’m no good at it?”
She didn’t have to explain to her father what she meant. Sam had spent the last couple of days talking to her, convincing her not to butt Seth out of her life.
“You know, your mother didn’t think she deserved happiness?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“That father of hers was a monster. It’s why she latched onto Joseph. She wanted to fix him. The only good thing your grandfather did was leave you the trust.”
It wasn’t the first time she had heard that from Sam.
“What if Seth asked you to give it up?”
“Give what up?”
“All the money,” he said just as the doors opened.
“He would never ask that.”
“But what if he did? What if that was the one thing you had to give up to have that young man for the rest of your life?”
Sam wheeled her out the automatic doors into the weak sunlight. It was overcast today, and it looked like there had been a rain shower. She could smell plumeria dance over the wind.
