Safe Harbor (The Lake Trilogy, Book 3) by AnnaLisa Grant Page A

at dinner, and then my refusal to back down at his House Call , I could have easily had an accident and never been seen again.
    The accident.
    “Oh my God,” I whisper, realization spreading across my face.
    “ What is it?” Luke asks, taking me by the shoulders in concern.
    “Didn’t Meyer’s response to Will’s interest in me always seem extreme? I mean he had no idea where things would go with us. We could have dated a few months and then fizzled out. But right from the beginning he was adamant that I stay away from Will,” I say.
    “ Everything Greg did was to the extreme. What are you getting at?” Luke says.
    “ Don’t you get it? I existed in Will’s world because of Gregory Meyer.” Wes and Luke look as confused as two people can.
    “If Meyer hadn’t gone after my parents to prove a point to you, I would never have ended up in Davidson. It’s because of him that my parents died, I went to live with Gram and Gramps, and ended up here with you.”
    I sit on the couch and put my face in my hands. My body begins to shake and Luke is at my side in an attempt to console me. I can’t hold back any longer and before I know it I’m laughing uncontrol lably. It’s that crazy kind of laugh that one does when the choices are either to laugh or to cry hysterically.
    “Layla?” Luke pulls me up so I’m sitting against the back of the couch and he can see the weird spectacle I’m making. “What…what are you doing?”
    “Don’t you see?” I say in between laughs. “He did this to himself! All of it! Everything he’s had to fix has been because he broke it!” I’m trying to stop laughing but it’s difficult. “Had he not shoved Holly and Marcus’ mother to the curb the way he did, there may not have been a Holly to deal with, and if he hadn’t been so cruel to them I doubt she would have shot him on the steps of the courthouse! If he had let Eliana take Will back to Hickory with her, I would never have met Will.
    “ His culpability was so much deeper than him doing what he had to do to get what he wanted. Everything that threatened his blueprint for success for Will was brought about by his own hand. That’s why he was so intent on getting rid of me, of Holly. Will once told me that he used to date girls his father didn’t approve of. His father never made any of them disappear. When I met Meyer, he had no idea how serious Will and I were, or would become, but he had to cut off the potential relationship because he knew the only reason I was here was because of him, and he couldn’t risk me being cut from the same cloth as my activist parents or ethical uncle.”
    “I’m so sorry, Layla,” Luke says, shaking his head.
    “Why are you sorry?” I ask, calming down and focusing on Luke’s evident pain.
    “I should never have pressed him. If I hadn’t pushed things, he would have never gone after John and Elisabeth.” I can see the weight of our world resting on Luke’s shoulders.
    “You could have never known he would do what he did. It’s not your fault, Dad!” I throw my arms around Luke and hold him tight like the night in Ashville he made sure I knew my parents’ death was not my fault. Now it’s my turn.
    “I knew what he was capable of…I just never thought I’d be on the receiving end,” Luke says through soft sobs.
    “Dad…”
    “Would you have still come to live with us if you knew all this from the beginning?” he asks, wiping the tears that have escaped his eyes.
    I think for a moment, not sure how to answer this loaded question. “I don’t know if I would or not. It all sounds so farfetched that I don’t think I would have believed you if you told me. What I do know is that I’m not the same person I was three years ago, and I wouldn’t be this girl if you and Claire hadn’t become my parents.” I sit on the couch, still reeling from what Luke and Wes have explained, and the realizations I’ve come to. “Claire doesn’t know any of this?”
    “No, and