Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 161899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 809(@200wpm)___ 648(@250wpm)___ 540(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 809(@200wpm)___ 648(@250wpm)___ 540(@300wpm)
Nope.
No time to get into that.
“Why did you all need—?” I began.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Pepper, get with the program,” Saffron snapped. “We didn’t need you for a prayer circle. We needed to use your resources,” she jerked her head to Auggie, then to Mag and Mo, “to find Birch. And we needed that to happen fast. Because Mom needs care. And we don’t want Dad finding her when she’s gone. She’s going to an old friend from high school who lives close to a hospital that has a top-notch oncology unit. When we’re ready, which will be tomorrow, we’re getting her out of there, getting her to her friend, and then other things are happening, and we have to disappear for a while.”
“You’re kidnapping Mom?” I asked.
She looked to the ceiling like I was trying her patience, then back to me.
“No. She’s going willingly. The first kid Dad had with one of his other wives, she was done. It just took her a while for her heart to catch up to her head. Sadly, that took so long, she was dying by the time it did.”
I gave more of my weight to Aug.
He took it.
“Go on,” I prompted my sister.
“So she’s ready to roll. It’s just that we don’t want Dad finding her because he can talk her into things. Like dying with a lot of pain so she can feel the hand of God, or whatever bullshit he’s spouting,” Saff concluded.
“Okay,” I said. “If that’s what you’re up to, why on earth would you kidnap me? In fact, why didn’t you just ask me for help?”
“Because you have Juno, and Dad offered me, his own daughter, up to a piece of shit, grifting lech old enough to be my grandfather,” she pointed out. “And I know, because my fiancé is four years older than me, and he’s Clyde’s grandson.”
My attention shot to Hottie Jon.
Whoa!
Plot twist!
My sister kept talking.
“The minute you had Juno, Dad was salivating for his chance to use her to get higher in the hierarchy of the church. And I think you get how he’d use her. Which meant it was an all-out offensive to get you back in the church. So I’ve been being a bitch and doing everything in my power to get you to fuck off and never come back because I was protecting you and my niece.”
She was protecting me.
And her niece.
She was being mean and Gonzo for God so I’d give up on them so she could protect Juno.
Oh man.
I was going to cry.
“But you just wouldn’t go away,” she continued.
“Because I loved you,” I whispered.
“I know, you big dummy,” she whispered back.
I stared at her.
She stared at me.
My lip quivered at the same time hers did.
Okay.
Oh man.
Oh shit.
Fuck it.
I moved to her.
She came to me.
We met in the middle, collapsed into each other’s arms and started bawling.
“Can someone cut me loose so I can look after my woman?” I heard Jon ask.
And suddenly, I wholeheartedly approved of Hottie Jon.
“And me, those are my sisters,” Birch put in.
“No,” Auggie said.
Totally hot, my man being a hard-ass.
I kept hold of Saff even as I looked over my shoulder at Auggie. “Maybe it’s okay.”
He held my gaze and slowly shook his head.
Okeydoke.
Not over the kidnapping yet.
Noted.
I turned back to Saff and whispered in her ear, “I’ll get him to let them go.”
“He was right. I was just being a bitch because I was mad at you because you might be fucking everything up,” she whispered in mine.
“Helping Mom?”
“No, scuttling the church, and setting up in Utah. Jon likes to ski.”
Uhhhh…
Wait.
What?
I pulled back so I could see her, though I didn’t pull out of her arms, and I was staring again.
“You’re going to—” I began.
“Clyde thinks I’m his trophy,” she explained. “I got him to trust me. He thinks I’m in with him. So he confided in me. He’s planning to cut and run by this time next year, taking me and all the money with him, and leaving what he doesn’t want behind. His other wives. His kids. He’s done it before. It’s his thing.”
I nodded when she paused.
So she kept speaking.
“He didn’t know I was with Jon. And Jon joined the church, as it were, to do what we’re doing. Get back at his granddad because he left his grandma and his dad and a lot of other people high and dry a gazillion years ago. Clyde doesn’t know Jon’s related to him. He’s kinda undercover, just not, um…officially.”
Well, wasn’t Hottie Jon a sly one.
“This will be culminating in having everything sorted, including Mom being safe and out from under it, and us taking off tomorrow,” she went on.
Wow.
“We’re also going to be turning everything over to the Feds. Anonymously,” she continued. “Dad’s screwed, but he’s just the sucker who believed. He won’t really be in trouble. But he might be broke. Clyde is fucked. He’ll totally go to prison. But Jon and I siphoned enough off, we’ve got Mom’s care covered, and we bought places in Utah, because Jon likes to ski, and Florida, because I like the beach. But also, Jon’s grandma needs somewhere to retire, so that condo is mostly for her. I also want to go to college. Be an architect or something. So we’ll have to settle somewhere, and we’ll probably do that in Utah.”