Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Since he helped it fall apart, that night he was caught with my mother…
But I can’t bring myself to go there just yet. I’m trapped on this boat with him for at least another hour before we reach another town large enough to have restaurants and room to dock a vessel this size.
Then, we’ll be stuck together for lunch and the trip back.
There’s plenty of time to get to the point, preferably once we’re closer to being able to leave each other’s company, so I say, “Yeah. I had the chance to join a bigger operation last year and potentially make more money, but I like working with Gramps. Maybe it’s weird, but he’s one of my best friends.”
“That’s not weird. It’s nice,” he says in that silky voice of his, the one I really wish was murmuring filthy things in my ear while he runs his hands over every burning inch of me.
Get a grip, Sullivan, I hiss silently to myself.
“Are you close with the rest of your family?” he asks, giving me yet another perfect opening. Still, I plan to avoid going there until he adds, “Your mother, for example?”
I glance sharply his way to find his glacier gaze already studying my face with the focus of a hawk watching an open field for mice.
Well…fuck.
I sigh and turn from the controls, which won’t require as much attention from me now that we’re in familiar open water.
“Did you know?” I ask. “That night? Before we…?”
He shakes his head. “No, but I suppose I should have. There’s definitely a resemblance.” My upper lip curls and his brows lift. “That wasn’t intended as an insult. Your mother is a beautiful woman.”
“She’s a cheater,” I say, trying to keep my tone as cool and level as his. This drama is old news. I’m not going to get upset about it now. I refuse to give my mother that kind of power over me. “And she wasn’t too keen on being a mother, even before she got caught with another man. Afterward, she just…disappeared.”
His mouth tightens. “What do you mean?”
“I mean she left,” I say, waving a hand in the general direction of upstate New York. “After the night my dad caught her out at the bar with you, she never came home. I was alone at the house the next morning, freaking out, thinking my parents were dead or something, until Gramps came by to tell me that my dad was in the hospital.”
I don’t know what I expect his response to be—a wince of guilt, maybe—but it doesn’t happen. His expression grows even more cool, more controlled, and his voice is steely as he asks, “How old were you?”
“Eight.”
“And Tracy never came home?”
I cross my arms and shrug my shoulders. “Well, technically, I guess she did. When we got back from the hospital late that night, one of the big suitcases from the garage and a lot of her stuff was gone, but I didn’t realize that until later. I was too upset. And too tired. A full day at the hospital, watching your battered father wheeze on a ventilator is a lot for a little kid. It wasn’t until I was packing up my things to move in with Gramps a few days later that I realized Mom’s nice gray suitcase was gone.”
His jaw clenches. “How long was it until you saw her again? Until she made contact?”
I huff out a humorless laugh. “Never. When I say never, I mean never. She never called or wrote an email or sent a card on my birthday. For a while, I thought she might be dead, but Elaina tracked her down when we were in junior high. She did a deep Google dive and found Mom in a posh town in upstate New York. She was remarried by then, to a horse breeder, and had a new last name, but somehow Elaina figured it out.” My lips twist. “Thank God for good friends, right?”
“I’m not sure in this case,” he says, his expression still unreadable.
I shake my head. “No, it was a good thing. After that, I could stop kidding myself that she was out there with amnesia or something and would come running home to me as soon as she remembered who she was. I could accept the fact that my mother was an asshole who didn’t love me and move on.”
“I’m sure it had more to do with your father than with you. She was very unhappy in her marriage.” He pauses for a moment before continuing in a softer voice, “Not that that’s any excuse. I’m sorry, Gertrude.”
I laugh and roll my eyes. “What for? It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t make my family any promises or decide to have a kid. And call me Sully, please. I told you, most of my guy friends do. It’s weird being called Gertrude by a man for some reason.”