“I hate that I don’t have that ease with my mom’s people. I hate that I feel like an outsider in the town I was born and raised in. I hate that my brother and sister have shut the door on all that love I just talked about, and I hate that my mom’s parents have made it that way.”

He nodded. “I get that. So Mindy and Shep, they don’t see or have contact with your dad’s people at all?”

“Since the day my mother died, they’ve refused. My grandparents, the Lassiters I mean, have consistently stood in the way. At first the Mendozas tried via the courts, but my dad’s parents didn’t want to make things harder. Mindy and Shep were a lot younger than I was, they had it…different than I did. By the time they got older, it was painful for my dad’s side of the family just to try to get access. In the end, it would have hurt my siblings so the Mendozas backed off.”

“So you came back to smooth the way between your daddy’s people and your siblings?”

She shook her head. “When my dad died in prison, everything I’d sort of compartmentalized fell apart. All the spaces in my life where I’d neatly stored people and relationships just sort of dissolved into a messy heap. I realized I couldn’t deal with this distance between me and my siblings. That I couldn’t just walk away from this place, which is as much a part of me and who I am as it is my siblings’. I can’t make them want to have a relationship with our dad’s family. But I’m their sister and they should know me. More than me a few times a year. My dad would want that. My mom would want that.”

He leaned forward and slid his fingers through hers, tangling them. “I think they’re lucky to have you as a big sister.”

“I’m not sure they think that way. As much as I want it to be so, we’re not close.” She raised a shoulder. “They suspect my motives. I end up being so careful all the time to not upset anyone that I’m not totally me. It’s artificial and that’s not something you can build a real foundation on.”

His mouth flattened out. Angry on her behalf. She warmed at that defense, even so subtle. “Why are you being careful? Mindy is an adult, Shep is nearly so, they don’t need you to tiptoe around who you are.”

What could she say? That when she was twenty her grandmother hauled her into a side room and threatened to never let her see her brother and sister again if she ever spoke of her father or his innocence? That she’d reminded Caroline just how easy it would be to poison Mindy and Shep against her so they’d refuse to see her like they did their father’s family?

She took a deep breath. “I have to skirt the elephant in the room to keep the peace. We—that is my siblings and I—experienced the death of our mother very differently. I was far older than they were so I had a more developed relationship with our parents. And their families too. We’re very different and my grandparents… Well I suppose I believe they’ve used that to their advantage to keep that gulf between me and the rest of them.”

“Why do you think that?” Not a judgmental question.

“Look, I’m not knocking their grief. I lost her too. But my grandmother is every bit of the control freak I am now. She was given a story of what happened and that is that. To even question it is to choose a side in her mind. Feeding Mindy and Shep an absolute is a way to keep them on my grandmother’s correct side of things. It makes it easy to control them, where they go to school, who they see. What they believe. I’m a wild card. I’m a messy bed and unfolded laundry, and as you might imagine, Abigail Lassiter doesn’t like either of those things. I wanted to see my sister and brother. I wanted to keep this part of my life alive, even if strained. So I danced to her tune.”

“But you’re going to change the record now?” One corner of his mouth quirked up.

“I guess you should know this up front, before we go out again or anything like that. I have spent a huge portion of my life, especially the last fourteen or so years, trying to prove my father’s innocence. I don’t push it in my siblings’ faces, but if it comes up, I speak the truth. The truth as I see it. The truth as I’ve pieced it together after combing through every little piece of evidence I come across over and over. He’s dead now. That he lost his wife, his children and his freedom and ultimately his life to the acts of a person who is still out there is something I cannot remain silent about. They kept saying I should move here, my grandparents I mean, so I have. But I’m not Mindy. I’m not easily controlled. And they’re old enough to deal with me as adults now.” She shrugged.

“First things first. There will most definitely be more dates and things like that.” He snagged one of the last onion rings off her plate, and she snorted. “I like the way you smell. I like that you’re up front with what you want and how you feel. You have no idea how f**king refreshing that is. Sexy too. As for the rest? I don’t know the whole story, and as we get to know one another, I’d like to hear your side, what you know. Whatever the reasons you’re back, I’m glad of it.”

That easy acceptance of her—of the way she felt and her right to feel it—should have been commonplace but it wasn’t. She was Caroline Mendoza, the daughter of a convicted murderer.

Back in Petal, there was a thin line, the sharpest she’d ever walked. While she’d been able to build relationships in her life in Los Angeles and Seattle, they hadn’t experienced the events surrounding her mother’s murder and the trial in the same way people in Petal had. They had an ownership over the history, up close and personal that others didn’t.