Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
“We couldn’t let them take our town, our county,” I snarl. “They put you in the hospital. They’re lucky that all I took was kneecaps.”
“I’m not talking about that. I’m thinking of a different hard choice.”
Ryan leans forward, his shoulders tight in the hospital gown. He’s always been a fierce bastard but looks downright demonic now. That’s what he called me, a demon, but it applies to him even more.
“I’m going to ask you something, and I need the truth, Kai. We don’t lie to each other. That’s not something we do. It’s not something we’ve ever done.”
I swallow, sitting upright. I’ve got to face this like a man, look it bravely in the face, and know that whatever happens, I’ll have to accept the consequences, even if it means letting Kay go.
No, no, no.
A thousand bikes roar in my mind, far fiercer than the bike she sat on in that prairie before everything shattered. Just the shining golden grasslands surrounded us, pleasure between us, hunger, and certainty.
“Ask me,” I tell him.
“If you had to choose between your relationship with Kayla and your friendship with me, which would you choose?”
Suddenly, I stand up. I don’t even mean to. The question is too blunt, too violent. It’s like he’s just punched me in the mouth with it. I walk to the window, then turn when I hear the door open behind me.
“Have you asked him yet?” Kay says with tears in her eyes.
I almost melt at the sight of her. She’s wearing those damn denim overalls, just like when this started, her hair tied up with a few messy strands here and there. Her cheeks are flushed, but not with lust, with pain.
“You told him,” I say.
“I had to.” She rubs a tear from her cheek in classic Kay fashion, like she’s pissed at herself for the emotion. “I couldn’t lie to him anymore.”
“I told her to wait, Kai,” Ryan says. “I knew you had to focus on this mess. She wanted to tell you I knew.”
“And this is your question,” I growl. I clench my hands into fists, feeling the fire and the rage from the past couple of days come back, licking at me like flames in a drug-filled warehouse. “You’re going to make me choose.”
“I have to know,” Ryan says. “You’ve never lied to me, not before this. Do you want to know what I mean when I say choose?”
I return to the bedside and force myself to sit. My body is trying to burst into action as if it thinks there’s another battle to fight. “Sure.”
Kay sits on the opposite side of the bed. It takes everything I have not to reach over and touch her, wrap my hand around hers. Kiss her, taste her again, the only thing that makes all this violence worth it. The only person I ever want. Goddamn, I’m longing for those grasslands.
“If you choose me, you agree to never touch or look at Kayla again. We’ll pretend the road trip never happened. You’ll swear that you’ll let the relationship go.”
I swallow, thinking of the practicalities of seeing her around town. Maybe seeing her find another man, settle down, and have kids. She says I’m the only one for her, but she deserves love. She deserves a family. Could I stand by and watch as she did that with somebody else? I might end up killing the man.
“And if I choose her?” I say.
Ryan stares at me coldly. It’s the same way he looked when he told me about his dad, the same pain in his eyes. “You and Kayla leave town and never come back. You find somewhere to start a family together. You try to be happy and never tell your kids about me.”
“So they’ll never meet their uncle?” I roar, jolting to my feet again.
I can’t help it. I know I’m being too loud, letting the fury lead me too much. But the thought of our children never meeting Ryan, never having their uncle in their lives…
“Our children deserve to know you, Ryan. They deserve to have you in their lives.”
“So it’s true? You want kids?”
Kayla opens her mouth as if to talk, but Ryan glances at her. She closes her mouth. I catch the quick exchange. She agreed to let him do the talking, but I can see the urge to speak bubbling up in her.
“Yes,” I tell Ryan. “I never planned on any of this, but without a doubt. I want as many children with Kay as she’ll give me. I know how insane that sounds.”
“It’s stranger coming from you than from you, Kayla,” he says, turning to his sister.
“Why?” I ask.
Ryan shrugs. “I always knew Kayla had a crush on you.”
“You did?”
“It was obvious. You never noticed because you just saw her as my kid sister.”
“Of course I did,” I snarl. “What else would she be? Do you know how stunned I was when I saw her when I returned? I didn’t even think she was Kayla at first. I thought I was imagining it. I can’t explain it.”