Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 73537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Micah sighed heavily. “Just talk to Pepper. I’m tired of this same argument.”
His annoyance with me only ignited my temper. How dare he get annoyed with me! I was the one who had the right to be annoyed. Me! Not him!
“As much as I love Pepper, she can’t tell me something about someone she don’t know. I never introduced her to Canyon. I told you, she didn’t know I was dating him. You’re making this into something it ain’t.”
Micah’s jaw was working, and I noticed the veins in his neck. He was angry.
Fine. Be angry. Join the club.
I was furious and tired of being treated like a child. My momma already did that enough. I didn’t need him adding to it.
“Pepper ever tell you how she lost her virginity?” he asked, his voice tight as he spoke through clenched teeth.
“Yes,” I replied, not sure how this had anything to do with me and Canyon.
She’d lost her virginity at sixteen to a man who was too old for her and had used her. She had thought he loved her. I remembered her crying as she had told me about it years ago.
I was a grown woman. I knew better. It wasn’t the same.
“The guy who did it was Canyon Acree.”
Micah’s hard response settled on me as I sat there, staring at him. Waiting for him to say joking or just kidding. But he said nothing. His body remained rigid. His hand gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. He was serious.
Oh my God. No. This wasn’t right. He was confused. Canyon wouldn’t do that.
I replayed that day and all she had said. The weeks that followed and how she was withdrawn, even from me. How I had sat with her in silence and held her hand for hours in my room. Neither of us saying anything. Just sitting there.
“A friend of her mom put him in jail,” I said aloud as I remembered her telling me about it.
“Liam Walsh. The man who raised me after my dad died. He’s the president of The Judgment. He wanted to be sure I got to see my sister after Dad passed. He and Pep’s mom kept in contact for our sake. When it happened, Liam made sure Canyon paid for it and used his resources to put him behind bars for five years.”
Micah and Pepper had different mothers. She had said his mom died when he was a baby. His dad had made sure they grew up close even though they didn’t live together. Micah would come stay at Pepper’s for a week at a time throughout the year and then for a month in the summers. After he turned sixteen, his visits became few and far between. The last time being when we were fifteen and he picked Pepper up from school. He’d taken me, too, and we’d stopped at Sonic to get milkshakes and tater tots.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach as a sick knot formed. How had this happened? The same man had met both of us without the other ever knowing. He’d hurt my best friend, and I’d let him touch me. Kiss me. I felt ill, thinking about it.
Was this a coincidence? Was that even logical? Or had he…
Oh God. He had set me up. He’d followed me. Put himself in my path. But why? To get back at Pepper? Why would he do that? Regardless of the whys, I had thought I was in love with the man who had hurt my best friend and taken something precious from her that she could never get back.
I dropped my head down into my hands and covered my face. I was so stupid. Maybe I deserved to grow old with a bunch of cats. I ought to just go adopt my first one this week.
7
Micah
Pepper was going to hand me my balls for this. She had made me promise to let her explain all this to Dolly, and I’d let my temper get the best of me. Blurting out the truth to her had not been the best idea. She was still hunched over, covering her face, not saying anything. Dammit, I was an asshole, but she had been so insistent on telling me how fucking safe the bastard was.
“This your apartment complex?” I asked her, already knowing it was.
Pepper had sent me the address. I wasn’t thrilled about its location, but that wasn’t my business. It could be worse.
She lifted her head, and thankfully, there were no tears. Just complete devastation. Yep, my sister was going to kill me.
“Yeah,” she replied softly. “Park to the left side. I’m over there on the second floor.”
I pulled in beside Pepper’s black Mustang and turned off the truck before looking over at Dolly again. She reached for the door handle, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to say. Normally, I had all the words when it came to women. I knew how to make them smile, laugh, come while screaming my name. But with this, I was clueless.