Page 16 of Dancing With Guilt

Also busy, with a family of her own to look after.

Which meant there was really nobody who could help her. Roxie was alone, again, with no idea who or where to turn to. At least that place was familiar, she thought, as she put the bag in the trashcan and went back to the couch.

Pulling a blanket over herself, Roxie closed her eyes and waited for the world to just disappear and leave her alone.

8

Lincoln

“Hey, big brother, how are you?” June’s voice banged into his head like a hammer on speed.

“What? What time is it?” Lincoln asked, sitting up in bed, his eyes clamped tightly shut against any light that might be in the room.

Hungover wasn’t even the word for the way he felt right now.

He’d finished an entire bottle of scotch after Roxie left the night before, so the hangover wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was that June was in his bedroom.

“I came over to spend some time with Roxie, but she’s not here. Where is she?”

“I don’t fucking know, June. Please, speak quieter.” Lincoln put his palm to his left temple and grimaced. “Please speak quieter.”

“What’s going on?” June walked closer, apparently close enough to smell the scotch fumes because she frowned and took a step back. “What have you done?”

“I found out the truth. A truth I should have been told ten years ago but Roxie decided I didn’t need to know.” Lincoln didn’t care if that made any sense at all. He wanted a shower and coffee.

He wasn’t surprised to find himself dressed in yesterday’s rumpled clothes, and peeled the shirt off as he got up from the bed. The shirt was discarded as he headed for the bathroom.

At least June said the only words he wanted to hear as he walked away.

“I’ll make coffee.”

She was an angel.

The shower cleared his head a little, but the pain only throttled back slightly. The problem seemed to be his stomach was upset too and the pain in his head was making it so much worse. And none of that touched the ache in his chest.

With his right hand on the shower wall, his head under the thrumming pressure of hot water, Lincoln remembered the first time he laid eyes on his daughter. Something broke in him, a wall he hadn’t known was up around his heart. He’d loved her the instant he saw her, even if that sighting was from a non-threatening distance.

And amongst that love was anger -, dark, malicious anger. Roxie had lied to him. She’d looked him in the eye on so many occasions with innocent eyes, not telling him the most important secret of all. A secret that could have changed the world for him a long time ago.

The second he set eyes on Lily everything had changed, and Lincoln knew that if Roxie, Chloe back then, had told him about the baby he’d have been someone completely different. He might even be a better man than he was now.

There’d have been no anger about the fact that she got pregnant, he was the stupid one who didn’t make sure to use a condom. He could have protected her all these years.

But maybe she hadn’t wanted to be protected. That thought intruded into his brain and he turned the water off.

She was fiercely independent; she really didn’t need someone to take care of her. Protection was different, as far as he was concerned, but she hadn’t needed him for anything, really. Any number of her friends would have found a place for her to hide, if he hadn’t been here now.

But he’d have liked to have had the opportunity to be a father to Lily and a protector to Roxie. To the girl he’d known as Chloe, he reminded himself. The woman was Roxie. Chloe didn’t exist anymore.

He went downstairs after he put on fresh pajamas, to find June had made coffee and toast. He took portions of both and joined her at the table.

“What’s going on, Lincoln?” June asked, sliding two Acetaminophen over to him.

Lincoln took the pain relievers gratefully, gagged them down with a swallow of coffee, and looked at his sister as if to judge how she’d take the news he had to give. After another sip of coffee, the decision was made.

“Ten years ago, I helped Chloe escape.” He couldn’t remember now if he’d ever admitted that to her, his brain hurt too much, but he knew the next part had remained a secret. At least, on his part. Roxie might have told her, but Lincoln knew he had never told a soul. “We were also, ahem, intimate that night.”

“Intimate?” June’s arched left eyebrow just added more doubt to the tone in her voice. “You and Chloe? You and Chloe who hated each other were…intimate?”