Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
“I know, but I’ll feed you at home.”
“Is Brady coming?”
“No. Come on, and don’t sass me. I’m not in the mood.”
Daisy frowns, but she doesn’t say anything as I lead her to the car and help her get buckled in. I’m not usually short with my daughter like that, but I have to go before I break down into a sobbing mess and accept any help that the Wild family is willing to give me. Before I scream for Brady to hold me and tell me that everything is going to work out.
Because it’s not going to work out. I want to accept their help. I know that they all have more money than Janet and that they could squish her like a bug, but I don’t know how to depend on people like that. I’ve always depended on myself, and it’s time that I remember that.
We’re quiet in the car on the way into town, and once we’re in the house, I tell Daisy to go to her room and choose her favorite things to pack.
“No.” She watches me with wide, brown eyes. “No, Mama.”
My girl is smart, and she remembers more than I give her credit for.
“Baby, we have to go.” I don’t know what I’ll do about this house and the business, but I’ll figure it out when we get wherever we’re going.
“No.” She shakes her head, and tears fill her sweet eyes. “We need to stay. I don’t want to move again. Please don’t make us go. We have Brady. What about Brady?”
I close my eyes and sigh. I should have known better than to get too comfortable. To fall in love and let my daughter fall in love, too.
I’ve royally fucked all of this up.
“Daisy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry my love, but it’s not safe for us here anymore.”
“Brady will protect us,” she says, propping her fists on her hips. “We’re safe with him.”
Before I can argue, the doorbell rings.
It has to be Brady. I don’t want to see him and have to tell him all over again that we can’t be together. It’s only going to make this so much harder. Jesus, I don’t know if I can recover from this.
With another heavy sigh, I walk to the door and open it.
“Oh, God.” Crazy eyes stare back at me.
“Where’s my daughter?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BRADY
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mutter as I brush Blackjack. “She’s been lying to me since the day I met her, boy. How can I even know her, really know her, if I don’t know her name?”
He blows out a breath and nudges my shoulder, hoping for an apple.
“Exactly, I can’t. I’ve held her while she screams and cries and has a breakdown about night terrors that I thought were about the bullshit she went through as a teenager.” I shake my head and move around to the other side of the horse. “And maybe there was some of that laced in there, but it was really about shit that I didn’t even know about. Because she didn’t tell me.”
My heart won’t quit hammering. From the minute she got out of that car this afternoon, my heart has been hammering like a jackhammer. And when I saw that missing person’s poster on Chase’s phone, I thought I was going to come out of my skin.
“How am I supposed to help her, when I don’t even know what’s going on? I can’t protect her like this. What else is she hiding from me, for fuck’s sake?”
She told me that she had secrets. She never lied about that, but I thought that over the past couple of months, we’d worked our way through them.
We’ve been living like a motherfucking family for weeks. I have house plans, and the septic has already been dug and set where I plan to build her a house, for the love of God.
Everything I’ve done has been with her in mind, and she’s been lying.
“Sure, she was scared,” I concede as I pull an apple out of a barrel and hold it out for the horse to munch on. “And I get that she could have some trust issues with the past that she has. But Jesus Christ, this is me. I’m supposed to be her safe place. I’m supposed to be the one that she can count on for anything.
“I thought she was that for me, and now I don’t know. I felt so guilty over that stupid commercial, and now my whole fucking world has fallen apart.” I lean my forehead on Blackjack’s neck and take a breath. “She talked about leaving, and I can’t have that happen. Because as fucking pissed off as I am right now, I love her. I can’t do this life without her. We’ll figure the crazy lady out because she is not leaving.”