Almost Innocent by Carina Adams Page B

fifth blue moon when she wanted to prove to her boyfriend of the week that she was a good mom, we’d meet at a restaurant in Portland.
    I’d become a pathetic spinster who didn’t trust easily. Declan’s words of warning had never been far from my mind, making me look at people differently. Because of that, I didn’t share much of myself.
    Moira knew where I lived, of course. I may not like Mrs. Callaghan, but she was family and loved Grady almost as much as I did. I couldn’t imagine Dec’s mother telling him. She wanted him as far away from me as he could get. In her mind, I’d poisoned one of her sons, and she wasn’t going to give me the chance to destroy the other.
    I didn’t blame her.
    Fi had probably told him. Maybe she’d hoped he’d come here months ago. Yet he hadn’t. He hadn’t wanted to see me. That fact still stung.
    To make matters worse, he’d blatantly lied when I asked him how he knew where I lived. That little tidbit did more than sting—it burned like a son of a bitch. Dec was the king of omission, always had been. He lied expertly when he was backed into a corner. Never to me though. For me, yeah. More times than I could count.
    Yet he’d always been painfully honest with me. Even when a lie would spare my feelings, he laid the truth out for me clearly, in black and white. It should have made me hate him, especially when his truths verged on being hurtful, but it had only made me appreciate him that much more.
    How long had he known where I lived? Would he ever have come on his own? The same questions looped through my mind over and over as I sighed and glanced around my room.
    This was my little piece of heaven, my escape from the world. In this room, I didn’t have to worry if everything was where it belonged or if it made the “right” impression. Instead, it was pure chaos. Clothes were draped over every piece of furniture I owned, books scattered over every open surface, and the little knick-knacks that reminded me who I truly was lined the shelves. It looked like a teenager’s room.
    I’d purchased the small cape not long after I’d gotten my first real job. I wanted to prove I could stand on my own two feet, but Moira had given me the giant down payment. She claimed it was money that had been set aside for Dustin’s first house, that all of her children got one, and since he was gone, the money was mine. I’d accepted only because Grady needed a real home, one where he could build a fort in the backyard, get a puppy, and make positive memories that would last a lifetime.
    Something I had never had.
    We loved it there—the boy, Zahira, and me. We were happy, hidden, free to live the life I’d always hoped for. I felt safe here, secure. Almost untouchable. It had taken me years to gain that freedom.
    After the police had hauled Declan away, I could barely tolerate being alone. Half the time, I forced Fi into the bathroom with me, mumbling whatever excuse I could think of at the time, because I was too afraid to even pee alone, never mind shut myself behind a solid shower curtain where I couldn’t see what was coming at me. Modesty didn’t have a place in your life when you had been through what I had.
    I wouldn’t even attempt sleep unless someone was with me, right there within arm’s reach. The times I had, I’d woken up reaching for Dec and sobbing until I cried myself into exhaustion after I remembered he was gone. Thank God for Fi. I wouldn’t have survived my pregnancy without her.
    I was terrified of my own shadow, jumpy as shit, and a textbook example of a battered woman.
    Until Grady came. One look at him, and I knew I had to be strong for the both of us. I couldn’t get over what had happened overnight—hell, I knew that I would probably never get over it—but I could definitely fake it until I made it. Which I did. For years.
    I was the queen of putting on a happy façade and pretending to be someone I wasn’t. No one—not my students, not my friends,