Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96178 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Her worst nightmare had come true. Gloria had found out. Gloria was standing right in front of her in this sleepy Atlanta neighborhood. “What are you doing here?” Ren asked.
Gloria took her sunglasses off and dropped them inside her purse. She smiled with saccharine brightness. “Aw, sweetheart, I just came to ask you how midterms are going?”
“I promise, I can explain.”
Gloria’s expression snapped closed. “I don’t need an explanation. I know exactly what you’re doing here.”
“You do?”
“Of course I do, you silly girl.”
Sweat prickled at her scalp and at the back of her neck. Everything, everything was going wrong. Why did she let Edward leave? He would help her. He would know how to navigate this.
Ren tried to channel his easy confidence. “I’m actually fine handling this on my own.”
“On your own? Is that right?” Gloria batted Ren’s bravado away like a lion swatting at a buzzard. “Yesterday, I took an unplanned trip into town for supplies and Tammy had the TV on behind the register. You’ll never guess what I saw.”
“I don’t—I don’t know. What did you see?”
“Just you and some boy holding hands at a party in Nashville, Tennessee.”
Ren’s stomach dropped. She remembered the music, the dancing, the champagne. They’d been watching the protestors when Edward had abruptly suggested they move, distracting her with a kiss to the side of her head and a skewer of fried Oreos. World-weary Edward had seen the cameras and known the danger they presented. It had never occurred to Ren. If there was ever a sign she was destined to be caught, this was it. “Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘Oh,’” Gloria mocked, and laughed harshly. “Tammy was so excited she took a photo of you on TV. She even printed me out a copy, and you better believe I used it to get that boy’s name. We got on the next plane.” Gloria saw them on TV in Nashville yet knew exactly where Ren was headed. Right down to the very street? Understanding was like a door kicked open. Ren snapped to attention at her mother’s voice: “Ask me how much I liked having to do that.”
“Gloria, you didn’t have to come for me. I would have come back. I promise.”
“You think after all the time and effort I put into raising you free of all this”—she gestured to the beautiful street around them—“I’m going to be fine with you hitting the road with some stranger and driving to Atlanta? I trusted you to go to that school, to hold true to the values we brought you up with, Ren. And the first time you’re away from home, you do this? Lesson learned.”
“Everything would be the way it was before! I just…” Ren took a deep breath and looked her mother in the eye. “I need to know the truth, and I worried that if I asked you, you wouldn’t let me go back to school.”
“The truth,” Gloria said, taking a step closer, her expression softening. “Ren, do you think that I would have kept something good from you? Do you think if there was something good for you to find here that I wouldn’t let you go? You think so little of me?”
“No, Gloria, I—”
“Did it not occur to you that I was trying to protect you?”
Ren paused, frowning. “Protect me from what?”
Gloria glanced at the house two more doors down and took a deep, shaky breath. “From a very bad man. Steve may not be your blood, but he’s the best father in the world to you and loves you like his own. He saved me from the hell of my first marriage.”
Confirmation of this felt like a knife in her side. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it didn’t matter,” she said. “You were so young, it didn’t matter that Steve wasn’t your biological father. We found a better place and made a better life, free of that man.” She tossed the last two words toward the house where the very bad man must have been.
“It’s a pretty place,” Gloria allowed when Ren’s gaze tracked down to the blue house with the white trim. “He was always very skilled at playing the part in public. Just know that dark things lurk behind these doors, Ren. You’re my only child, my baby girl, and it took a long time for me to get free of his clutches.”
Ren shivered, instinctively taking a step closer to Gloria and meeting her eyes. They were shiny, filled with unshed tears, and maybe a little afraid.
Ren had only seen her mother cry once, and it was when her favorite mare colicked and passed overnight.
“I didn’t know you were in a bad relationship before Steve,” Ren told her. “We never talk about that stuff.”
“For good reason.” Gloria reached down, taking Ren’s hand. “Please, baby girl, don’t bring him back into our lives again. I need you to trust me.”