Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 94313 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94313 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
“We’ll give you two a few minutes,” Gram said, squeezing my shoulder as she stood.
Be good, my mom mouthed as she walked out the door, using her index and middle finger to point at her eyes and then at me.
I barely held back from rolling my eyes. What was I going to do? Make her cry? She was already doing that. Get her pregnant on my parents’ bed? That ship had motherfucking sailed.
“I’m sorry,” Esther mumbled, straightening away from me. “Your mom’s just so nice.”
“My mom?” I joked incredulously. My mom was the kindest person I’d ever met, but if you asked anyone they would’ve said the opposite. She hid that part of herself very well.
“She’s awesome,” Esther argued in disbelief. Scowling at me. “She’s excited about the baby and she doesn’t even know me.”
“I was kidding.” I watched her face as she tried to get her emotions under control. It was kind of startling to see her so upset because she’d been so calm all morning. She’d barely batted an eye once she’d put the old pistol down, just gone along with us—with me—like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“What are the men, you know, your club or whatever, what are they going to do?” she asked, lacing her fingers tightly in her lap. “Did they call my dad?”
“Honey, why do you think they’d call your dad?” The conversation was getting a little repetitious by that point. She couldn’t still believe that he hadn’t had anything to do with the stolen shipment, right? I mean, a person would have to be pretty fucking delusional to still believe that.
“To come get me,” she replied, her lips barely moving. She wasn’t looking at me anymore.
“Esther.” I shook my head. How the fuck was I supposed to explain that if I had breath in my body she’d never go near that fucking sociopath again?
“They can’t just keep me here, right?” she said, looking around. “That’s—that’s like kidnapping.”
“You’re not safe with your parents, sugar,” I replied as gently as I could. I wasn’t going to touch the mention of kidnapping. The club had done far worse than hold someone to keep them safe.
“You don’t know that. You don’t even know them. My parents love me, Otto.”
“I know that the phone you were supposed to use for emergencies—say, when a group of men showed up at your cabin lookin’ for their missin’ guns—was wired to blow that entire cabin to kingdom come the minute you tried to call out.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she shot back, her jaw clenched. “I’m telling you—my dad wouldn’t hurt me. He’s mad at me. He’s disappointed. That doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.”
“You know the guy that was drivin’ our truck was beat within an inch of his life?” I asked, willing her to take this shit seriously. “He’s still in the ICU with his brain bleedin’.”
“You don’t even know that was my dad!”
I just looked at her as it finally sunk in. She was trying so hard to maintain that the life she’d led, with the white picket fence and strict parents, was the only truth, that she was refusing to see what was right in front of her. It wasn’t that she was naïve, or stupid, or in shock. She just couldn’t reconcile what she’d always known with the hard truth that had been presented to her.
“Let’s table all that for a minute,” I said tiredly.
“Table it,” she replied dubiously.
“You’re havin’ my baby,” I said quietly, reaching out to put my hand on her belly. I half expected her to push my hand away, but she didn’t. She sat frozen in place while I spread my fingers wide, my palm pressed against the roundness.
“I would’ve told you,” she said, looking down at my hand. “When I could. I would’ve told you.”
“Yeah?” I was barely paying attention.
There was a little person in there. My person. How the fuck had that happened?
“I didn’t have your phone number,” she mumbled sheepishly. “But once I was back in town, I would’ve found a way to contact you.”
“I went to the garden center,” I blurted, taking my eyes off her belly but leaving my hand where it was. “Saw your brother.”
“You saw Ephraim? What did he say?”
“I was lookin’ for you,” I clarified in case she hadn’t realized. “But I didn’t ask for you because I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”
She let out a hoarse laugh and her belly jerked under my hand.
“I don’t think you could’ve gotten me in any more trouble than I was already in,” she said wryly.
“About that—”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I used a condom.”
We were speaking over each other and both came to an abrupt halt.
“I remember,” she replied simply.
“I didn’t want you to think that I wasn’t careful—” I continued on. Suddenly it was really important that she knew. “—that I didn’t try to protect you. I did.”