Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“That’s okay, Goldie. I actually came to ask you about something.” I hesitate, wondering if this is maybe not the best idea, maybe I shouldn’t bother a sick old woman with this stuff, but I have to do it. There’s nobody else in this house I can turn to right now and I’m terrified that if I don’t talk to someone, I won’t know how to handle this with Kellen.
“What’s wrong, dear?”
I blink a few times and realize there are tears in my eyes. “I’m sorry, Mrs.— I mean, Goldie. I came to ask you about your husband.”
“Ah,” she says and lets out a long sigh. “You know, it always comes back to that man. He was a bad person, you know. A very angry, dangerous man, and he only got worse over the years. But back when we first met, I liked the anger and the danger. It was exciting, being with a guy like him. I was so young and pretty back then and he was so handsome and charming and had more money than any other guy I knew. I thought I could smooth out his edges and calm down his temper, but it didn’t work that way, it didn’t work at all.” She sighs, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, honey, what we were talking about?”
“Orin, your husband,” I prompt, putting my hands on the edge of the bed. “Do you remember anything from the last few years? Anything about the way he’d—” I stop myself, reaching for the words and tasting them on the edge of my tongue but I can’t bring myself to speak them. “The way he’d go for walks around the garden when I was working.” That’s hard enough to say and my heart’s racing as sweat beads along my back, a cold and gross sweat oozing from my pores.
She frowns at me, head tilted. “He did that a lot, didn’t he?”
“Sometimes,” I say, looking away, over at the TV where the cowboy is tying up the bandits and lecturing them on the difference between right and wrong, honor and justice, and I wonder what the hell a guy like him knows about either thing, a guy so quick to reach for a gun, to turn to violence to solve a problem. A man who can see through the lens of a bullet and no further.
“He’d stay out there for a long time,” she says, her voice raspy, “and when he came back, he’d be in such a good mood. I asked him about it once and he told me—” She squints as if looking at a far-off painting. “He told me to mind my own fucking business. Sorry for the bad language, dear, that’s just how he talked.”
“Do you know what he was doing?”
“I had suspicions. I wondered a lot over the years, and there were a few times when he wasn’t careful and I saw the other girls or found proof of them, but what could I do? Leave him? There’s no leaving this family.”
My eyes widen, heart thudding. “Oh, god. You think—Your husband and I? It wasn’t like that.”
“It’s okay, honey. It was a long time ago. I’m sure Kellen would understand. Orin was a powerful man and you were a single girl living all alone out in that cottage.”
“No, I’m sorry, Goldie, we weren’t having an affair.” I feel sick just from thinking about it. The idea that Orin touched me sexually is so repulsive I want to vomit.
She tilts her head, confused. “Then what were you doing?”
I open my mouth to tell her, because somehow the truth isn’t as bad as what she’s suggesting, but the doors bang open.
Kellen strides into the room followed by Eunika, looking smug. The nurse ratted me out, that piece of trash, and I jump from my chair, backing away from the bed. Goldie smiles, looking even more confused as Kellen zeroes in on me and grabs my arm roughly.
“Are you okay, Mother?”
“I’m fine, dear, your wife was just visiting. What’s wrong, Kellen?”
“Tara didn’t have permission to be in here.”
Goldie looks haunted as she shakes her head. “That’s okay, dear, that’s okay. I was just talking to Tara and remembering something—”
“Sorry, Mother. I should have posted guards but I didn’t realize someone would stoop so low.” He stares death at me and drags me from the room.
“Wait,” Goldie calls out. “Tara, I remember. I’m sorry, dear, I remember what he did! I’m so sorry!” I look back and tears roll down her cheeks, but Kellen doesn’t slow down. He pulls me from the room and throws me against the far wall, seething with rage, too angry to listen right now.
“Are you insane?” he asks.
“Kellen—”
“You must be fucking crazy to go into my mother’s room first thing in the morning and rile her up. She hasn’t been well the last couple days and you think it’s a good idea to start talking to her about the past? I had to race home to deal with this shit. You’re lucky Eunika reached out to me and not Hugh.”