 by Sloane Kennedy.jpg)
Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
I was just there to do my job and then he arrived, and I knew in my gut everything was about to change. Everything…
For former soldier turned nurse practitioner Lincoln Arden, Pelican Bay was supposed to be just another dot on a map, and the crotchety old man he’d been hired to assist in his physical rehabilitation was supposed to be just another patient whose body was slowly giving in to the harsh reality of time.
It was just another job… one in a long list of many. One that lasted only long enough that Lincoln could do what he needed to do and then keep moving. Always moving.
But nothing about the live-in job was like all the others. Not the chaotic group of men who’d made themselves into a family, not the charming old farmhouse that sat in the middle of nowhere, and most certainly not the endless acres of trees, streams, and every other one of Mother Nature’s miracles that reminded him of the beauty of life after being witness to so much death.
He’d done it, though. He’d remained on the outskirts of that family despite the warm welcome they’d offered him from day one, and he hadn’t let his surroundings make him forget that it would be time to move on soon enough.
But then he arrived…
Theo
Returning to Pelican Bay and the past that came with it was the last thing I wanted to do, but “visiting” my former best friend would give me the time I needed to figure out where to disappear to next…
Even though Theo Lancaster had only lived a few towns over from Pelican Bay, returning to the hometown of his one-time best friend in northern Minnesota was like walking through a doorway to the past and the exact moment his life had changed forever.
Simply put, the small, picture-perfect town was the last place he wanted to be, but with no home, no friends or family to lean on, and no money, his choices had been pretty limited. Fortunately, the past that haunted his dreams night after night had prepared him for the moment by turning him into something he’d never thought he would be.
A liar.
A fake.
A fraud.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
THEO
I really was a good liar.
It wasn’t something I was exactly proud of, but I couldn’t say I typically felt a lot of guilt about spouting falsehoods.
Not anymore.
And they weren’t really lies if you were just telling someone something they wanted to hear anyway, right?
Yes, Mom and Dad, I’ve been saved by the light of God.
Yes, Father Abbott, I’ve been healed through prayer, and He has forgiven me my sins.
Yes, I am cured of my unnatural desires and am grateful to my Lord God for showing me the way.
So then why the fuck couldn’t I catch my breath as I flipped the three locks on the door, ensuring I was once again safely ensconced alone in my apartment?
Why did it feel like I was fifteen again and lying to my parents about what I’d really been doing with the boy who’d been so much more than just my best friend?
He's okay. Ford is okay.
I pressed my head against the flimsy wood and tried to focus on the sounds of the apartments around mine. The couple across the hall were shouting at each other as usual and the guy three doors down was blaring his music so loud it made my teeth hurt. I was surprised the dealer in the apartment next to mine hadn’t done something about the hip hop-loving wannabe DJ since that much noise would be sure to draw unwanted attention to our building and, more specifically, our floor.
I almost laughed out loud.
Who was I kidding? The cops, along with the rest of the world, had given up on this part of the city a long time ago. Minneapolis and its sister city, St. Paul, successfully held on to its wholesome midwestern reputation year after year but it was just like any other place. Whether by choice or by circumstance, the lost hid themselves within the shadows of the found.
I was one of those lost, though I’d spent the better part of a decade pretending to be one of the found.
Found in God.
Found in life.
Found in myself.
Bullshit.
It was all bullshit.
Just like the lines I’d fed to my former best friend and childhood sweetheart, Ford, and his good-looking cop boyfriend minutes earlier.
Ford is okay.
My body began to feel equally hot and cold as I turned my back to the door and let my body slide along the wood until my ass hit the thin carpet.
Is this okay?
I’d asked Ford that question over and over as I’d unleashed my newfound desire on his gorgeous body when we’d still been foolish teenagers who’d believed we were somehow immune to the way the world really worked. Although Ford had been older than me by six months, I’d been the aggressor when it had come to giving in to the white-hot need that had become like a living thing between us from the first time we’d kissed.
Is this okay?
I could still see Ford’s blown pupils and swollen lips as he looked down at me and nodded. I could feel my hands shaking as I desperately worked to open the button and zipper of his snug jeans. I could still taste the sweetness of his kisses on my tongue as I let my fingers drift over the outline of his erection beneath the too-tight denim.
Is this okay?
Theo, please…
Theo, please.
Those had been the last sweet words I’d heard from his lips before the hellfire that my parents and their beloved Bible had warned me about had finally come crashing down on me… on my entire world.
“Fuck,” I whispered as I let my eyes drift shut and watched the entire scene play out again in my head.
Light flooding the dimness of the athletic shed that had served as a make-out spot for Ford and me.
My fingers tightening around the waistband of Ford’s jeans as I took in the sight of his erection tenting his briefs the second the thick flesh was free of the confining denim.
Wood slamming against wood, someone shouting, my desire-muddled brain trying to play catch-up.
Then pain.
So much fucking pain.
And not just from Ford’s fist as it had connected with my cheek. No, it was the name he’d called me as I lay on the floor at his feet trying to make sense of what was happening.
There’d been a lot of pain after that. Sometimes it had seemed like every minute, every hour, every day that had followed Ford’s defection had only been about pain.
My eyes popped open long before the other images could invade my brain. I felt the strength return to my body as a different kind of anticipation made my blood burn. I ignored the whisper of a voice somewhere deep inside my head that tried to tell me there was another way.
Because there wasn’t.
Not anymore.
Not in my world.
In my world, pain meant one thing and one thing only.
Relief.
Fucking relief.
Enough relief to remind myself that I’d escaped that hellish day and the ones that had followed and, just like Ford, I was okay.