Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 28678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 143(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28678 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 143(@200wpm)___ 115(@250wpm)___ 96(@300wpm)
“I know she’s there, Winters. Fat little whore has to be. You send her back or I’ll burn your fuckin’ house to the ground. Do you hear me? I’ll end you.”
Yeah, that sounds more like the angry, cruel stepfather I know. Quickly, I delete the message. My heart pounds as I imagine Albert showing up here. He’s in deep debt. I don’t think for a moment that he wouldn’t set everything Colt owns on fire and that would crush my cowboy. He’s already lived through this once. I can’t let that happen to him a second time.
I fight a wave of bile and open up a new text message to Albert. I don’t want her around. She’ll be there by tomorrow afternoon. Don’t contact me again.
I delete the texts and the previous voicemail from his phone. Finally, I block his number so Colt will never know what happened. This is for the best. It wasn’t fair of me to drag my dad’s best friend into this mess in the first place.
It only takes me a few minutes to gather my sparse belongings and shove them into my backpack. Because I can’t resist, I creep into Colt’s room one last time. I give myself a moment to watch him, letting my gaze drink in the form of the man I love.
When I’ve stayed as long as I can, I move closer to the bed. I reach up and unhook the necklace that hasn’t left me since I was ten years old. Gently, I place it on the pillow. “You can’t protect me anymore.”
Then I’m gone, leaving his beautiful farmhouse with the screen door that squeaks and the porch with the flags that wave so proudly in the breeze. The porch where I won’t get to put rocking chairs or glasses of sweet tea.
Colt
The first rays of sunshine are starting to light up my room when I wake up to cold sheets. I haven’t slept that long in ages and I know it was because of Sierra. Being with her gives me peace.
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I sit up and immediately know something’s wrong when I spot the necklace on the pillow. Cradling the black onyx gem, disappointment but not surprise sweeps through me. She left.
I was afraid of this. Given what she said last night, I’d bet anything my little angel thinks she’s protecting me.
Grabbing my phone, I dial Brody. He answers on the first ring. “She’s already back in Kentucky.”
I swear under my breath as I stumble from the bed and grab a pair of blue jeans. The moment I realized she was gone, I was fully awake with my mind running a hundred miles an hour. “That’s too fast.”
“Been watching all night,” he answers casually and the thought that he was watching over my angel while I slept peacefully makes something burn in my gut.
I put a tracker in her backpack the first night she was here, and Brody has been monitoring her location ever since. I thought she’d pull a disappearing act at some point, but I’d hoped to be wrong. I wanted her to trust me with this.
Step one will be to get to Kentucky and make sure my girl is safe. Step two involves her stepfather and serious bodily harm. But even the thought of hurting the man doesn’t soothe the raging beast within me. No, the only way he’ll be calmed is if she’s in my arms again. “Can you—”
“Ryker has already filed the flight plan. We’re waiting for you,” he answers.
In the background I hear Ryker calling out that wheels are going up in ten. He’s the biggest, most ornery person I’ve ever met. But the grumpy pilot will do whatever it takes to help me get my girl back. Right now, that’s all I care about.
“What do you have for us?” I ask Brody the moment we’re in the air and he turns his attention from the laptop where he’s quickly pounding keys.
I don’t understand exactly what he does, and I’ve never asked. All I know is that Brody can sit down at a keyboard, punch something in, and suddenly he knows what your second cousin twice removed had for breakfast last Tuesday.
He looks up from his laptop with a grimace. “Her stepdad is small potatoes. Just a stupid drunk with a chronic gambling problem.”
I figured as much. I’ve never met Albert, but Daphne had a track record for cheating on Parker. Usually with losers who had some type of addiction.
“The loan shark on the other hand is a piece of shit. Curtis pretends to be a small-time loan shark, but he’s actually the head of a criminal syndicate. He usually befriends down on their luck gamblers and keeps loaning them money until they can’t repay him. At which point, he wants a girl close to them. Usually underage but sometimes not. Depends on what his buyer is looking for.”