Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Every mile added to my bad feeling, and my foot pressed the pedal a little harder. By the time I hit his exit off the freeway, I realized I was going ninety-five miles an hour. I’d made the half-hour drive to Jayce’s in twenty minutes.
My brother didn’t answer the front door—not that I gave him much of a chance before I used the key he’d given me last year.
“Jayce!”
No answer.
“Jayce!”
No answer.
I flexed my hands open and shut a few times. So cold. My hands were so cold.
Not in the kitchen.
Not in the living room or small dining room.
The bedroom door was wide open.
Nothing.
There weren’t many more places to look in the small house.
Not in the yard.
I walked down the hall that led from the back door to the kitchen and found the bathroom door closed. Facing it, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Fuck. I’m making myself crazy.
I took a deep breath and knocked. “Jayce. You in there?”
No answer.
I knocked one more time, and the door pushed open as I did.
I froze.
My breathing halted.
The earth shifted, and a fault line ran up my heart.
No.
No.
“Nooooo!” I screamed.
I rushed toward my brother’s limp body hanging from a rope tied to the ceiling fixture. He’d removed the light to reach up to the beams in the rafters.
Panicked, I lifted his body to give the rope slack.
His eyes were open and bulged from their sockets.
His lips and face were blue.
Dried blood stained the corners of his mouth.
But I refused to believe it was too late.
“No!”
“No!”
“You can’t…”
I held him for the longest time, not wanting the rope to tighten around his neck.
I couldn’t let go to get something to cut him down.
I couldn’t let go to call someone to help.
I couldn’t let go to check if he had a pulse.
I couldn’t let go.
I just couldn’t let go …
Chapter 34
— Hunter —
PRESENT DAY—TWO WEEKS LATER
This was a hell of a lot harder than I’d thought it would be.
Sitting on an Adirondack chair in Derek’s yard, I looked over at Natalia talking to a bunch of women and wondered if anyone else saw what I saw. Maybe they were blinded by her beauty—the smile that lit up a room, long legs toned just right so they were muscular, yet still feminine, and a dress that hugged her curves yet covered everything in a way that made it sexier to show less skin. But when she’d said hello earlier today, our eyes met for a brief second, and I saw it before she quickly made her escape. She was hurting beneath all those layers of beauty. And I fucking hated that I’d done that to her.
I sucked back my second seltzer water, wishing it were something else. But after weeks of binge drinking—crap I hadn’t pulled since right after Jayce died—Derek had made me promise sobriety for the christening. It was the least I could do.
My buddy sat in the chair next to mine, one arm holding his sleeping beauty in a long white dress that hung two feet longer than she was.
“My wife is going to divorce me when she finds out, you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
He shot me a look that said don’t be a dick. “And she’s gonna find out. She could’ve just gone on thinking you were a perpetual douchebag who didn’t want to be tied down. But nope. You screwed that up. Ever since your drunken night talking about Jayce, she thinks you’re broken. And you know Anna. There’s nothing she likes better than a project to heal someone. She’s not going to stop digging until she knows every little thing about your life. I’m not offering details, but I also won’t lie to her. Eventually she’s going to ask me the specifics of the genetic disease he had and put two and two together.”
“Don’t use bad language in front of my goddaughter, please.”
Derek shook his head. He stayed quiet for a moment as we looked over at his wife and her best friend. His voice turned serious when he spoke again. “Nat deserves to know.”
“No, what she deserves is a whole lot more than I can give her.”
“What about you? Don’t you deserve some happiness?”
I sipped my seltzer, wanting a drink to take the edge off in the worst way. “Leave the healing projects to your wife.”
* * *
We couldn’t avoid each other at the church. The godparents sat on the end of the pew next to each other. Natalia had Caroline in her arms. She looked beautiful cradling a baby—a real natural. And it had nothing to do with how gorgeous she was. I tried not to look over at her, fighting the urge to stare, because for a brief second, I’d forget she wasn’t mine anymore. Then when I remembered, it hurt to breathe.
One of the blankets on top of Caroline dropped to the floor, so I leaned forward to pick it up, dusting it off even though the marble floor was sparkling clean. The church was warm enough, so I laid it on the pew between us rather than covering the baby again.