Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“What was the or else?” I asked, stomach sinking at her words.
“Well, at first it was his career with DPD.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “But then when the chief saw that wasn’t working, he started to threaten you. After a little back and forth, Auden agreed to leave you alone if Chief Austin would stop harassing you and let you run your business.”
My mouth fell open. “What?”
“And my husband and his brothers gave him advice,” she continued, as if she hadn’t just shocked the hell out of me. “They convinced Auden to give them a few days so that they could work something up, come to an agreement, or whatever the hell they thought they could accomplish. And in those few days, he was to leave you alone and not contact you, and act like he was following his word.”
I scrubbed between my eyes with my pointer finger before saying, “Great.”
“The rest of them have stayed away because they’re worried that them coming here will negatively affect you and your business. And they don’t want it to shut down,” she said. “Auden truly feels like if he comes around you, Austin will retaliate, and actually take your business out.”
I shook my head in absolute horror. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“I can tell you’re mad,” she consoled.
I was already shaking my head. “I’m not mad at Auden or the rest of the Carters. I’m furious, though, with my father. I have been controlled by him for so freakin’ long, and I’m so over it. I don’t even know what to do anymore.”
Maybe it was actually time to leave.
Maybe Auden had made the right decision. Maybe we weren’t meant to be. Maybe I was meant to leave the stupid state and get as far away from my father as possible.
“Don’t give up,” she said quietly. “Give us some time to fix this. To find a way.” She patted my hand. “Germaine and I were already talking about retiring. We want to spend time with our grandbabies. And the boys were already talking about moving to the Sunnyvale Police Department because it’s closer.”
I couldn’t breathe.
They would change their entire life around just to support me?
I couldn’t let that happen.
I just couldn’t.
“No,” I was shaking my head. “That can’t happen.”
She patted my hand again. “It’s absolutely adorable that you think that you can control a Carter. It’s cute, really. But you can’t. Once they get into their head that something has to be a certain way, it’ll never leave until they prove it was the wrong idea. Hence me being here, telling you all of this. They would’ve figured this out, and it would’ve been months down the road, and then he would’ve come begging. I just see no reason to make you both torture yourselves in the process.”
She had a valid point but…
“Give us some time,” she urged, then paused, a thoughtful smile coming over her face. “How do you feel about moving to Sunnyvale?”
I burst out laughing.
But hours later, as I was closing up the shop, I was doing some serious thinking.
Maybe that really should be my first step—moving out of Dallas.
Maybe, if I was in a different city, he wouldn’t be able to affect me as much.
On the other hand, Auden and my relationship was at the baby level. Moving there so hastily might be a bad idea. What if we didn’t work out, and we were in the tiny town together? How would that work?
Maybe I should wait…
I’d thought long and hard about what I wanted to do when it came to my future plans, and my entire being was telling me that I needed to go.
Athena called me when I was on my third Sunnyvale rental listing able to accommodate a bakery.
“Hey, two things,” she said before I could say hello. “One, can I have your DNA? Two, can I use your photo in my program as a test control?”
I smiled at her way of greeting. Never a dull moment with my genius best friend.
“I mean, I guess.” I giggled. “What’s the photo and the DNA for?”
“Well,” she said, “I was building the app, as you suggested…”
She trailed off, and I waited patiently for her to continue.
Since it was such a normal thing for her to just forget that she was having a phone conversation with me, I didn’t try to catch her attention.
It took her a solid two minutes, and I went about what I was doing before she’d called.
I skipped through two rentals that had really weird five-year leases required, then came to a stop at one that looked like it was perfect for my needs.
I bookmarked it and kept searching.
“Anyway,” she started back up again like it hadn’t just taken her two minutes to speak in the middle of a story. “So I was thinking last night that when a child goes missing, they collect the parents’, or even the child’s, DNA and upload it to the NCMEC—National Missing Persons DNA Program—DNA database. And so I want to write that program into this app, too. Like, if someone is interested in submitting their DNA because they feel like maybe something’s off about their living arrangements? I don’t know. I just felt like it would be a great idea to upload it into the app. Plus, if not you, I’d have to ask my mom to help. And she told me to stop looking a long time ago.”