Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
I didn’t have time to process it.
No time to step back or just fucking run.
Not before an explosion so fucking loud and disorienting erupted in a gulf of flames.
A detonation of heat and fire and power that blasted me back.
There was no way to stop it or prepare for it.
No way to even contemplate the pain as I flew.
There was nothing at all as my entire world went black.
FORTY-TWO
HAILEY
I led Starlight to her stall, smiling the whole way, my lips tingling from the meaning I’d felt behind Cody’s kiss.
I opened the gate and removed her bridle, whispered my love to her, before I started back out.
A scream tore out of me when I was suddenly rocked by a thunder so intense that the ground shook violently beneath my feet.
A sonic boom that echoed through the air, rattling the metal of the stalls and tossing the entire world into disorder.
My hands shot out to steady myself against the gate.
My knees weak and my heart hammering as bolts of confusion and anxiety shot through me as the ground tremored and rolled.
An earthquake.
A volcano.
A rendering of peace.
I gasped and tried to orient myself, to process what I’d heard.
To make sense of what still trembled through the atmosphere.
Shouts rose up from all around, in the distance and some coming from a couple ranch hands who ran past me down the aisle where they tossed the door open at the end in search of what had happened.
My head spun, and I swallowed around the tumult that had me in shock.
Gathering myself enough to focus, I tuned my ear to the shouts and voices that were coming from outside.
Not an earthquake.
An explosion.
Oh God.
It was an explosion.
Panic erupted in my senses, and I slammed the stall gate closed, latched it, and went running in the same direction as the other hands had gone, flying out through the door to the disorder happening on the other side.
Shouts.
Mayhem.
Chaos.
Voices penetrated from all around, rising through the smoke that clouded the air.
“Someone call an ambulance.”
“Stay back!”
“We need an extinguisher.”
I faltered for only a beat, my heart in my throat as my gaze raced to where the commotion was coming from.
To the lot near the maintenance facility.
Then I was running.
Sprinting.
Hemorrhaging.
My heart bleeding out when through the haze of smoke and dust I saw Cody’s truck.
Consumed in flames.
“Cody, oh my God, no, Cody.”
I ran as hard as my feet would take me, my boots pounding the ground, the world falling away around me.
People were gathered around, though a few were holding them back, keeping them away from the heat that I could already feel blasting my face.
“Cody!” I shouted it through the terror that ravaged, and I barreled through the wall of bodies. “Cody!”
Arms curled around me from behind. “Stay right here, Ms. Wagner. It’s not safe.”
I flailed and tore at Tyrek’s hold, my chest bowing as I warred to break free. Screams ripped out of my lungs. “Cody! Where is he? Let me go! Please, let go.”
Two men were on the opposite side of the truck, about eight feet out, kneeling around something I couldn’t see.
But my soul knew.
“Cody.” I whimpered it that time.
A siren bleeped from the fire station that was only a mile down the road, and the whirring sound of it curled through the heavens as it started our direction.
“Cody.”
It was mayhem then.
The fire trucks and ambulance that pulled up, firefighters and paramedics descending on the scene, pushing everyone back while employees scrambled and swarmed to see what the clamor was about.
While I felt my heart shatter out in front of me.
FORTY-THREE
CODY
TWENTY-FOUR YEARS OLD
Cody sat in his truck beneath the shade of the tree.
Waiting.
His guts in a knot of shame and desperation.
How many times had he heard the sayings? Proverbs and inspirations and pretty words inscribed on plaques about the lengths a man would go to for his family? He doubted much those sentiments extended to what he’d succumbed to. The immorality he’d been driven to.
But he had no other choice, and he was close. So close to getting his mother out of the hole she was in, and he was determined to dig her out of it even if he ended up buried.
It turned out Brent was running an illegal gambling ring based at the horse track here in Eddings, a small city a little more than an hour from Wagner Ranch. He’d used his connections at the ranch to give him an in. Using it as a cover.
The guy was dirty. As dirty as they came.
And he was using Cody to put pressure on those who hadn’t made good on their bets.
Cody tried to justify his actions by saying these guys had it coming to them. It wasn’t like they were innocent. It wasn’t like they weren’t out pilfering away their families’ security with their addiction to money. With their greed. With their stupidity.