Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
I found her in her bedroom, and she smiled when she saw the gun on the bed.
“That was your brother’s, wasn’t it?” I asked.
She nodded.
“It is.” She cleared her throat, then shrugged into her t-shirt. “Was.”
I walked up behind her, amazed at how her body seemed so small compared to mine, and placed one lone hand on her belly, pulling her back into my chest.
Pressing my lips against her neck I said, “I’m proud of you.”
She shivered as my words made their way into her ears. The roughness of my voice was probably bringing the shivers rather than the praise.
“I…I liked what we just did,” she whispered.
She placed both of her hands on my wrist, holding on tight as we both processed what we’d just done.
Freya had been amazing. So fucking phenomenal that I felt guilt sliding into my gut at how different she’d been from my wife.
My wife wasn’t exactly adventurous in bed. After the initial sex phase where we did it like bunnies, anywhere and everywhere, Aerie had gone on a birth control that had dramatically decreased her sex drive.
Earlier in our marriage, we’d have sex once a day, if not more, before it’d dropped down until I was lucky to get it once a week.
She’d tried multiple forms of birth control, but none had been right for her. So to help get her back on track, a condom had primarily been our main form of birth control.
Neither of us had been ready for kids, and then I was deployed on my first and only tour of duty in Iraq shortly after. Immediately after discharging, I’d gotten a job with the local sheriff’s department and had started working full time only a few weeks after getting home.
I’d just gotten home from my deployment when Collin Coller had decided to break into our home. When my wife had put up a fight, he’d shot her to contain her.
He didn’t mean to kill her, according to him, but it didn’t matter whether he meant to or not. He did, and that was enough to condemn him in my eyes.
Needless to say, it wasn’t exactly a good feeling to know that Freya affected me far more deeply than Aerie had.
She had the power to destroy me.
The loss of Aerie from my life had been devastating. It affected every single thing I did with my day to day life. I’d had her since I was in high school, a friend to talk to whenever I needed it. A confidant. Then one day she was taken from me, leaving a broken man to pick up the pieces.
Freya, though. She had the power to kill me.
I wasn’t sure I would be able to survive if anything ever happened to her.
Which was why I was ready to pull back.
I’d miscalculated, and it was time to regroup.
If she’d let me.
But she’d stalled my departure with a few words.
“They’re trying to take my brother from me,” she whispered.
I blinked.
“What?” I asked.
“They’re trying to take what’s left of my brother from me. Right out of my hands.”
Chapter 11
I can’t fix stupid, but I can give it a court date.
-Ridley’s current T-shirt
Ridley
I stood in line next to Freya and studied the menu board.
We were at McDonald’s.
I hated McDonald’s. With a passion.
But this was where Freya wanted to come, and I found myself unable to find anything that looked even remotely appetizing.
She was upset, which was understandable.
She had just found out that she might lose her house if she didn’t pay the loans on not just her house, but her brother’s house as well.
I’d gone to the bank with her to get information and had left being so pissed off that I hadn’t been able to tell Freya no when she’d asked if we could go to McDonald’s.
The kid behind me started screaming again, and I held onto my patience by the skin of my teeth.
I’d had a long fucking day, and Freya hadn’t made it any better by telling me she forgot to tell me about the little fucker Craddock deciding to buy the loans from the bank, which had been her explanation to why they were trying to take her brother away from her.
How the banker would even have been able to do that, I didn’t know, but he had.
I’d had a talk with Freya’s bank only thirty minutes before and I still didn’t know how he’d done it.
Freya had left heartbroken, sure that she wouldn’t be able to pay the loan in the time Craddock had allowed.
“I want a pie!” the kid bellowed at the top of his lungs.
I turned my head only and stared at the greedy, loud bastard.
He wasn’t even cute.
It was obvious his mother let him eat whatever the hell he wanted to and likely gave him whatever he wanted.
Had that been my kid, I would’ve spanked his ass, ordered my own food, and then eaten it in front of him.