Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
It was the woman who’d been in her house across the street when someone took my sister.
And my dad had his arm around her.
He’d said “we” in his text.
Good God, until that moment, I’d totally forgotten the “we.”
“Baby,”—Cap was curling my resisting body into his—“what?”
“That’s…it’s…with Dad, that’s Deb. Debbie. Deborah.” I swallowed and looked up at him. “That’s Miss Deb, the lady who lived across the street from the playground Macy was taken from.”
Cap’s head whipped to the side, and I was in a daze, but even so, I felt his inner Raye My Woman! caveman take control with such savagery, it was like the ground shook under my feet.
Shirleen knew her son, she felt the vibe, and she was clicking over in her beautiful gold slingbacks double time.
She entered his line of sight and Cap shifted both of us so he didn’t lose his lock on my father.
“Look at me, Julien,” she demanded sharply.
He didn’t look at her.
She dipped into his vision again. “Look at me, son.”
His beard flexing, he looked to her.
“What are we dealing with here?” she asked. “I need to smooth things over while you take Raye away?”
“No,” I said in a small voice. “I’m okay.”
My small voice was a mistake.
A big mistake.
Cap’s head snapped to me, his eyes narrowed on my face, and without a beat passing, he took my hand, placed it in Shirleen’s, and there’s no other way to put it, he bore down on my dad.
“Oh shit,” both Shirleen and I said at the same time, and we clickety-clacked on our pumps, triple time, to Cap.
We got to him when Cap was finishing growling, “…a word.”
Having no clue why they were doing it, but also feeling the vibe, Tex and Scott had taken his back. My dad, not missing the threat, had a pale face, and Deb, at his side holding his arm with both hands, had one too.
“Hi, Dad,” I said.
He turned to me where I was standing at his side.
He got no chance to say anything, because Cap was speaking again.
Now, to me.
“Sit down, order a drink, baby. I’m gonna have a chat with your father.”
“I think we should all sit down, honey. But first let me introduce you to—”
“Rachel,” he clipped.
I closed my mouth.
Okay.
This was my guy.
And this was his job.
And honestly?
I didn’t have it in me to find the words I needed to share with my dad in that moment.
I was relieved Cap was going to do it.
I didn’t know what words he was going to say, exactly.
I was still glad he was going to say them.
I turned to my dad and said, “I’m sorry, Dad. This is Julien Jackson. He’s my boyfriend. And he’s very protective of me.” My eyes swept through Deb, but I still saw her wince when I finished, “Especially around the issue of Macy.”
“I told you, you should have warned her, Charlie,” Deb whispered.
“I don’t think that now’s the—” my father began.
“Dad, you really need to go,” I said softly. “Or I won’t be here for another ten seconds. Cap will take me away.”
Stiffly, now pissed too, a reaction that made my insides hollow out, I was so familiar with it, Dad lifted his chin, and with movements that were also rigid, walked away.
Cap followed him.
“Maybe I should go to our room,” Deb murmured.
Our room.
“Are you two together?” I asked her.
“Honey, I think your father—” she started.
“You were going to ambush me,” I cut her off. “I’m sorry, Debbie, but you don’t get to make the decisions when the tables are turned.”
“I told Charlie he should have this first dinner with you alone,” she remarked.
“Well, that didn’t happen. You’re standing right here,” I pointed out.
“Right. Then, okay.” A big breath then, “We…we reconnected a…a little while ago,” she told me.
“How long ago?” I asked.
She swallowed.
“How long?” I pushed.
“We were married three years ago.”
I felt like she’d punched me in the stomach.
Married?
“Three years ago,” I whispered.
“Yes,” she admitted, practically squirming under my stare.
I didn’t care.
Three years ago, my father remarried.
And he didn’t tell me.
“Do you have a phone?” I asked sharply.
“Rachel,” she whispered.
“Tell me!” I shouted. “Do you have a phone?”
“Yes, of course,” she said quietly.
I pointed in her face. “So you could have called me. Or you as his wife could have made him call me.”
She lifted her chin. “You have a phone too, Rachel.”
“And I use it. How am I supposed to know my father is seeing a woman, and marrying her, unless someone fucking shares that with me!”
I felt Cap’s hand on my back.
I looked up at him. “We’re going.”
“Rachel.” Dad was in my space, speaking urgently.
“Back off,” Cap snarled.
Dad was blurry with the tears in my eyes. “I’d want you to be happy. Don’t you think I’d want that for you?”
“Deb and I didn’t—” he began.
I could take no more.
“What?” I shouted in his face. “What didn’t you? I didn’t blame her. You did. But it was nineteen years ago!”