“Charity is your sister,” her father fired back, now folding his arms across his chest and glaring down at her, “and the only one you have left. Family is sacred, Honor, but you’ve defiled that and the good name we gave you with your selfishness. And then you agreed to marry that man and go against our wishes? How dare you? How dare both of you.” He divided a fulminating glare between her and Liam.
Honor didn’t know how to respond. Her family had made it abundantly clear they didn’t want her and Liam together when she’d first expressed her interest in him, which is why she’d kept their relationship quiet and had dreaded telling them about the engagement.
Her father’s eyes turned even colder. “And now that you’ve gotten what you wanted, you’ll have to answer to yourself and God for what you’ve done.” He pointed a finger down the hall. “Your sister is in there fighting for her life right now because of your selfishness.”
Honor swallowed a sob and glanced at her mother, who was crying as she stared at Honor. As though Honor had broken her heart by being with Liam, let alone agreeing to marry him.
Somehow she summoned the courage to face her father again and found her voice, shaky as it was. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s the consequence of your actions,” he snapped. “Now you’ll both have to live with what you’ve done.”
“That’s enough.” Liam pulled her back toward him and stepped between her and her father. “Honor doesn’t deserve this.”
“She deserves that and more,” her father snarled, “and so do you.”
“No, she doesn’t. Charity is sick. Maybe you don’t want to face it, but it’s the hard truth. And she’s sicker than you’re willing to admit, if you can stand there and blame Honor for this. Bottom line is, this was Charity’s doing and no one else’s. No one forced those pills down her throat. It was her choice.” He glanced between him and her mother. “You really can’t see that? Or is it that you don’t want to?”
The words hung in the air between them like a taunt, an axe ready to fall. Before it could, a middle-aged doctor came through a door at the end of the hall and strode toward them. “Mr. and Mrs. Girard?”
Her father whipped his head around. “Yes.”
They all moved with him toward the doctor, meeting him in the middle, and he motioned for them to follow him into a private room down another hall. Wishing they’d had this kind of privacy for the past ten minutes, Honor stood in the room behind her parents, Liam at her back with his hand on her waist. She gripped his fingers tight in her own, grateful for his presence even though it had escalated things.
The doctor smiled at them, oblivious to the drama. “Your daughter has been stabilized. We were able to pump a large portion of the drugs and alcohol out of her stomach and we’ve given her medicine and fluids to help flush the rest out of her system. Her vitals look good. We won’t know for sure until she regains consciousness but I’m confident there won’t be any long-term effects. I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t make a full recovery in a few days.”
Her mother gave a soft cry of relief and went limp in her husband’s arms. “Thank you,” her father told the doctor, his voice rough. “When can we see her?”
“Just as soon as she’s awake. We’ll do a few tests to verify everything’s okay, then we’ll let you in to see her. It might be best to limit her visitors for a while, until she’s more emotionally stable. You can discuss everything with the social worker who’s coming to see you shortly, and Charity’s psychiatrist will be in to see her in the morning. She’ll want to speak to you as well.”
When he left and the door shut behind him, a heavy silence filled the room.
“You need to leave now,” her father said without looking at her.
His cold dismissal sent a flare of panic through her. “I want to see her first.”
He rounded on her so fast she instinctively reared back and bumped her head against Liam’s chest. “You’re the last person on earth she’d want to see, and the last person I’ll allow into her room. Except maybe him.” He spat the word like an epithet, his accusing gaze flicking to Liam.
Slowly, her muscles so taut she feared they’d snap, Honor shook her head. “I don’t want to go.”
“I don’t care what you want, you’re not wanted here! Get out!” her father exploded, flinging his arms outward. “Just get out and leave us the hell alone, both of you.” He shot her a venomous glare that sliced her to ribbons inside, then whirled away, giving her his back.
Honor absorbed it without reacting, already turning numb inside. She was still breathing in and out, but she wasn’t sure how. Her entire body felt like it was made of concrete, including her lungs.
She didn’t resist when Liam eased her back into his arms. He turned her to face him and cupped the back of her head in one hand, his eyes steady on hers as he wiped her tears away. “What do you want to do?”
I don’t know! She wanted to yell the words. It was all too much, the shock, their anger and blame, the guilt writhing inside her. The ring in her pocket seemed to burn through the denim, branding her skin. Had she driven Charity to this? Had she known on some level that this would happen and just hadn’t cared?
She took a step toward the door.
“Honor, no.”
The plea in her mother’s voice stopped her. When she turned her head, Honor found her reaching for her.
“Come here.” Her mother forced a wobbly smile and nodded in encouragement, the hand she held out a tenuous lifeline back to them.
Honor looked from that hand to her mother’s beseeching expression, then to her father’s broad back. “Dad?”
“You’ve already made your bed when you chose him over your blood.” He didn’t bother looking at her. “Go.”
Family is sacred.
Those words and the meaning behind them had been drilled into her since she was a toddler. She knew exactly how strongly her father felt about them. Just as she knew if she walked out that door with Liam right now, she was as good as dead to him. And to her mother too, since she always sided with and backed him. A united, immovable force that had been a solid foundation to stand upon her entire life.
Now it was fractured beyond repair, crumbling rapidly beneath her feet.
Liam’s hand was warm and strong on her waist. He was her future, her chance at happiness. But at what cost? Could she really pay that price and live with herself now?
A cold, yawning pit opened up in Honor’s gut.
“I need to talk to Liam for a minute,” she managed past the tightness in her throat, and turned to leave.
Out in the hall, he stopped and took her face between his hands. In light of what she had to do, the concern on his handsome face killed her inside. “What do you need, baby? You want to stay a while, see if he cools down? Or you want to leave? I’ll drive you home if you—”
“No.”
He frowned. “No what?”
“I can’t leave.”
“Okay.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight to his body, pressing her cheek against the curve of his shoulder. “Then we’ll stay.”
Honor squeezed her eyes shut and held on tight. He was deploying to Afghanistan again in just a few days and even when she arrived at Bagram a month after that they wouldn’t see much of each other. They couldn’t, due to regulations.
Her head spun at the unbelievable turn of events. Mere hours ago she’d lain naked in his arms and stared at the way the light glinted off the aquamarine in the ring he’d chosen, filled with joy and excited about the future. Now that dream lay in ashes at her feet and it felt like she was being torn in two.