Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
“You told her you loved her. How could you say that and not mean it?” The question was pocked with soggy, gasping tears.
Cody froze, and his arms went rigid. Regret pilfered from his nose. “I didn’t, Hailey. I never told her that. Would never lie about that. If I tell someone I love them, I fucking mean it.”
Sobs kept erupting.
Uncontrolled.
Unchecked.
I wanted to accuse him of being a liar. But once I’d opened the box where I’d stored away the memories, it came flooding back.
Brooke had wanted him to. She’d wanted him to love her.
But he hadn’t. It had been clear.
I’d chalked him up to being a player.
Toying with both of our emotions.
But that wasn’t him.
“It broke my heart, too, when you were with her.” The revelations kept coming, the stress of the day pushing me to my breaking point. I was no longer able to contain what had been brewing for years.
His regret doubled, and those strong arms pulled me tighter, his voice splintered pieces of gravel. “I’m sorry. I’m fuckin’ sorry for hurting you. I couldn’t touch you, Hailey. Couldn’t. Not when you were this sweet, innocent girl my gut warned me I would wreck.”
He inhaled a shattered breath. “Because I wanted you in a way that I knew wasn’t right, and I’d be a bastard to touch you, so I did everything in my power to stay away from you. It was hard, though, every time you came around, shining so damned bright when I was in the middle of this shit that I knew was going to ruin my life.”
He was injured, but he kept drawing me closer, like there was no chance he could get close enough. I clung to him, too, my consciousness spinning. “What shit, Cody?”
Shame filled his sigh, though he didn’t let me go. “My mother was going to lose her house. I couldn’t let that happen. The Wagner Ranch manager at that time heard I was looking to make some extra money and he offered me an opportunity. The guy was crooked, Hailey. Running illegal bets down at the horse track over in Eddings. I didn’t know it when he offered it, but I was hired to shake guys down when they didn’t pay up.”
Alarm blared in the back of my mind.
Cody felt it, and he somehow hauled me closer.
“He was a bad guy, Hailey. Really bad. I didn't realize just how bad until I was in too deep. After he’d already given me enough money to pay off my mother’s debt. After I’d already taken the money and given it to her...”
“What happened?” I almost begged it.
A shiver rocked down Cody’s spine. “There was this guy who’d gotten a couple beat downs. Owed a shit ton. Refused to pay. Brent came to me with an extra hundred grand to take care of the problem.”
Horrified disbelief slammed me on a rogue wave. “Oh my God.”
Cody’s throat rolled heavily as he swallowed. “It’s why your father hates me. I went to him for help, and I confessed what was going on. He called a friend at the Feds to take care of Brent and break up the ring he was running. He told me I got a free pass since I’d done the right thing and come to him, but he warned if I ever showed my face anywhere near him or his family again, he was going to see to it that I never had the capacity to make that mistake again.”
He sucked for the air that had gone missing. “It was the day I left, Hailey. When I came to tell you goodbye because I couldn’t leave without doing it. Then I turned my back and buried my head and kept my nose clean for the last six years, always looking over my fucking shoulder for the day those crimes were going to catch up to me. Worried that someone who knew me then was going to come back for me. That, or your father would finally turn me in.”
“Cody.” I whimpered his name. “But you’re here. With me.”
After every warning.
After every danger.
He pulled back, his thumb tracing beneath the hollow of my eye, the gold of his gaze flaming in the muted light.
“Told you that you’re worth it. Whatever the cost, Hailey, you’re worth it. If anyone has Karma coming their way, it’s me, Hailey. It’s me. So drop this bullshit that you’re in any way responsible for this.”
He was wrong, though.
Pruitt was my responsibility. Cody had nearly been killed because of him.
I blinked through the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “Pruitt isn’t going to stop until I give in.”
“Pruitt can go to hell.”
“This isn’t some drunk guy at a bar throwing fists, Cody.” I begged it. “Pruitt is dangerous, and he won’t let anyone get in the way of what he wants. I should have realized the lengths he would go. I should have run far away, hidden where he could never find us. I never should have come here.”