Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
She leaned into me a bit longer than I expected, and by the time that I let her go, Greer was there with a smile on her face.
She bypassed the coffee cup Sara was holding out and dove right into her friend’s arms. Sara had to quickly lift the coffees high over her head to stop herself from spilling them.
But I saw the moment that some of the tension I hadn’t realized was there fled from her shoulders.
Greer pulled back with a smile.
A smile that dimmed when she got a good look at Sara’s face.
“Sara, what’s wrong?” she asked.
Sara swallowed and held out a teacup to her.
I took Greer’s and handed it to her before I repositioned my own, then caught Sara around the shoulders and guided her to Greer’s kitchen table.
Greer didn’t have furniture. At least, not any that I was willing to acknowledge.
There was a couch and a chair, but they were made for people that must’ve been petite. Because my big ass sure as fuck wasn’t going to sit in it and possibly wind up on the ground.
Sara giggled as we bypassed the stupid little chairs and was somewhat looking like herself for a few long moments before Greer ruined it.
“Tell us what’s going on,” Greer ordered. “Is this about whatever it was with Sunny?”
Just then, another knock sounded on the door, and I hurried back toward it. Unsurprised when I found Sunny there, explaining Sara’s fourth cup of coffee I hadn’t thought about until now.
“Sheriff,” I said stiffly, unsure that I was going to be all right with what I’d be hearing from Sara.
Sunny tilted his chin up slightly, then bypassed me and went straight for the kitchen—or rather Sara.
Sara looked up at him, and I could see the relief in her face at the sight of him.
I felt that knot in my belly tighten.
Mostly because I started thinking about how I hadn’t seen Sara with any man ever. And that was rather weird…right?
“I need you to sit.” She pointed at the two of us.
I sat, and when Greer didn’t sit fast enough, I caught her belt loop and tugged her down anyway. Right into my lap.
Sara didn’t blink at the position.
Greer didn’t attempt to move, and I knew that she needed the anchor just as much as I did. We both knew that whatever was about to come out of Sara’s mouth wouldn’t be good. Not at all if she had the sheriff here to give her the support she so clearly knew we wouldn’t be able to give her when she was done.
“Oh, would you please hurry up!” Greer all but bounced in my lap. Which was unfortunate because I knew this was a serious matter, but having Greer’s butt bouncing and grinding was making my dick think about other things. “This is killing me. I’ve given you the space and the time, but shit!”
Sara winced. “I should’ve told you a long time ago.”
And that was the wrong thing to say to Greer. Because Greer was all about getting the information she wanted when she wanted it. When Sara told me something in confidence that she didn’t tell Greer, I knew there would be hell to pay.
This was likely going to be one of those times.
“Why the shadiness?” Greer asked. “What are you hiding?”
Sara looked down at her hand.
“A long time ago, when I was seventeen, you remember that time that I didn’t talk to either one of you for like, two months?”
Yes, of course we fucking remembered that.
Both Greer and I thought that the other had done something to her, yet Sara hadn’t fucking talked. Meanwhile, we’d done everything we could to make each other’s lives a living hell until Sara had put a stop to it almost two and a half months after she’d stopped.
She’d all but thrown us both into headlocks and demanded that we act like the adults we were soon to be. Then, when she knew she had our attention, she made us promise that we’d never treat each other like that again, no matter what.
And ever since, we’d managed it.
Something told me that that time had been hell for her. And I’d done everything in my power—at least my seventeen-year-old self’s power—to figure it out.
I’d never managed it. But that hadn’t been for lack of trying.
Every once in a blue moon I’d ask her. In fact, I’d asked her not long after being released from prison. Yet she’d managed to keep the secret locked up deep inside of her like a vault.
I had a feeling that what we were about to hear had a lot to do with the man standing in the kitchen with us.
“I was r…rap…” she shook her head. “I can’t say it.”
I felt my stomach clench.
“Sunny was the one to respond from the FBI.” She looked down at her hands again. “The man that was suspected of doing it was someone that’d been doing it all over the country.”