Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 74227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
My eyes went distant as the memories started to assault me one by one.
The day I met Sal. How my life had changed in a matter of moments.
How I’d thought I’d won the lottery when I married Sal, a fine, and upstanding police officer.
Him being a police officer should’ve been a good thing.
It wasn’t.
He acted like he was a god. Like he could do anything just because he wore a badge.
Fast forward five years, and I was at the lowest of my lows.
I’d cut myself off from the rest of my family. I was pregnant again, scared, and alone as I tried to run away from a man who found it fun to beat the shit out of me just because he could.
I didn’t make it. It’d been my fifth failed attempt.
The moment he got me inside our home, he beat me.
The last day I’d felt any semblance of my old self, I’d had another miscarriage.
That’d been the last straw.
I wasn’t playing around anymore.
It didn’t matter if I died. What was the point anymore?
I had no one. My family was all sickened by the sight of me—totally my fault. My friends thought I was a joke—again, my fault. My business associates hated me because I always called out sick, mostly because I’d been beaten so badly that I couldn’t stand up—yep, still my fault.
It took me almost another six months to concoct the perfect plan to get away from Sal. Then three more months after that to put the plan into place.
It was at the fourth women’s shelter I’d been to in less than forty-eight hours that I found Sam’s card. Well, it hadn’t been Sam’s card, but his organization’s card. It had been handed to me by some random nun who told me that my trouble wasn’t the kind of trouble that they could handle. And if I wanted to not only save my life but the lives of the other women in the shelter, then I needed to call the number on the card.
I’d called the number.
Less than eight hours later, I had found myself standing in the middle of Nowhere, Texas, staring at a man who told me he would help me.
There’d been no catch, no promises were made on my part. Just a couple of really good-looking men, and two young women, taking the burden off my shoulders.
“Lark!”
It wasn’t the name that brought me out of my contemplation, but the worried cadence of Baylor’s voice.
“What?” I asked. “Are you okay?”
He looked at me worriedly.
“Are you okay?”
I tilted my head to the side in confusion. “What are you talking about? I’m perfectly fine.”
I started to look around, noticing that Harold was nearly back to his own place.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I was fine. Okay. Great.
At least on the outside.
But on the inside, I was a jumbled mess of nerves that was still unable to believe that this new life I was in was real.
I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“…poppy...”
My entire being froze.
My breaths stalled in my lungs. My hands fisted at my side. My feet shifted to take flight. My heart started to slam in my chest.
I was shivering, a fine sheen of sweat had dusted my face and chest, and there was a roaring in my ears.
Poppy seed bagels. Goddamn those things.
“Do you like poppy seed bagels?” he asked, holding up a brown paper bag. “I got some at the store.”
I managed to shake my head. “No, I don’t like p-p-poppy seed bagels.”
Lies.
I loved them.
Turns out, Sal doesn’t. How did I find that out? When he tried to punch me in the throat when he caught me eating one. He’d missed my throat. My jaw hadn’t been so lucky.
He shrugged. “I have some cheddar asiago ones, too.”
He handed me the bag, and my arm automatically lifted to take it.
I looked from him to the bag, wondering if he saw my minor freak out moments ago, but he didn’t show any indication that he had noticed.
So, I chose to ignore it and walk into my house.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
I skirted the bike, keeping my eyes on my feet as they propelled me up the front walk.
“I came to see why you left before the game,” he said.
My brows went up in surprise at hearing that he’d noticed me leaving.
“How did you know I did that?” I asked.
“Because I watched you walk away,” he said. “I kept expecting you to come back, but you never did.”
No, I never had.
I didn’t tell him that, though, and instead continued to walk through my house, knowing that he’d followed.
“This is…nice.”
I laughed under my breath.
“This is garage sale finds,” I muttered. “The house came partially furnished from the previous occupant.”
Well, partially furnished was more like fully furnished. She’d left everything but the food in her fridge. The stuff in her pantry she hadn’t bothered to take.