Free Pursued by the Rogue (The Fairy Tales of New York Book 1) by Kelly Hunter Page B

here. That baby I lost—” she looked at him and there was a world of goodbye in her eyes. “It was yours.”
    *
    Finn opened his mouth. Surely some kind of response was called for, but he couldn’t speak. She’d announced it in such a cool little voice. Life-shattering news given in a brusque postscript. A footnote.
    It was as if she’d cut out his tongue, cut off his legs and left him bleeding. The sound he finally made wasn’t one he’d ever made before. A desolate cry of incomprehension at life’s cruelty. At her cruelty to him and to herself – Christ it must have been hard for her. More than hard.
    She’d been seventeen and all alone. She could have called on him for support, called on someone for help, but she hadn’t.
    Where had her friends been in all of this? His sister and Dawn’s other friends. Mercy and Zel? She could have told them? Why hadn’t she?
    It was all starting to make a crazy kind of sense. She couldn’t tell them because Faith was his sister. Telling them meant telling him. As for her parents or the aunt that she’d lived with, maybe she’d known she’d get no support from them.
    She’d worn the consequences alone.
    She was still alone.
    Because she wanted to be.

Chapter Six
    ‡
    D awn waited outside the Ambassador Theater for her mother and aunt to emerge, and when they did she waved them over, threaded an arm through each of their elbows and took them to a restaurant for late night sweets and coffee with a kick in it. Conversation came easily to her mother and Meg – they’d always been sisters and as far back as Dawn could remember, they’d always been friends and confidants.
    Family bonds, strong and true.
    Dawn’s own family bond with them had been lost at twelve years old when her mother had sent Dawn to Meg with no real explanation beyond the need for Dawn to get a better education. Aunt Meg hadn’t been totally on board with this plan but not for the reasons Dawn had thought.
    All those heated phone conversations between the sisters – all those times Dawn had overheard Meg trying to convince Dawn’s mother to take Dawn back – they hadn’t been about Dawn being a colossal disappointment at all.
    Vivian Turner had wanted to protect her daughter from the ugliness of her father’s failing body and mind.
    Meg Dawson had vehemently disagreed with that approach.
    Nothing to do with Dawn being ugly, unwanted and odd.
    Dawn liked her aunt a lot. The rift with her mother, on the other hand, had never fully mended and Dawn didn’t know if it ever would. She’d been so utterly lost when she’d first come to New York as a child. A skinny outback girl more used to bare feet and brown snakes than convents and the social politics of American teenagers. Football and proms. Juniors, seniors and clothes. Dawn’s clothes had been sun-faded and threadbare when Dawn had arrived all those years ago. Not suitable at all. A childless Aunt Meg had taken her clothes shopping immediately and between them they’d chosen what they liked and got it utterly wrong.
    “Do you remember that hippie coat?” she asked her aunt, coming in on the tail end of her mother’s enthusiastic appraisal of costumes. “The blue corduroy with the … I don’t know … was it Aztec trim?”
    “I loved that coat,” said Meg.
    “So did I.” Dawn turned to include her mother. “No one else did. The kids at school thought I was so weird. I swear, half the reason I went to St. J’s was for the uniform. I hated that uniform but everyone had to wear it. Much better than inflicting my debatable fashion sense on a regular school system.”
    This kicked off a spirited conversation about the merits of various school systems and Dawn was content to sit back and listen and occasionally, when asked, give her opinion.
    Only when Dawn signaled for the check half an hour later did Vivian Turner return her attention to her daughter.
    “Dawn, you’re very quiet. Did you catch up with Finn?”
    “Yes. We