Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 128801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
A disorder blustered through her senses.
Gratitude.
Fear.
That fluttering in her belly that had risen all the way up to infiltrate her chest.
There was hatred, too.
Hatred toward the jerk who’d ripped her dress when she’d struggled to get out of his car because he thought he could reach out and take whatever he wanted.
Hatred that her word hadn’t mattered.
Hatred that Seaton was going to get away with it since his father was a doctor in town, and it was his word against hers. His word against Ryder’s. Ryder who’d also been charged with possession and had beaten him so bloody it looked like he’d been attacked by a madman.
“It’s me who should apologize. You’re the one who got arrested for me.”
He scoffed. “A small price to pay for putting that fucker in his place. He needed to know if he ever comes around you again, things aren’t going to land in his favor.”
“I hardly think things landed in his favor last night.” Her brow lifted, her voice barely twining with a thread of lightness.
Paisley had called her this morning. Her boyfriend, Jeremy, was one of Seaton’s best friends. Paisley had told her that Seaton’s jaw had been broken and he’d lost two teeth.
Paisley had been horrified, ranting and saying she was going to kick Seaton’s ass, too.
Dakota kept studying Ryder from the side.
Carefully.
Any ease they’d found in the last few weeks was hard to find tonight.
“It didn’t land in yours, either,” she whispered.
Leaning forward, Ryder blew out a sigh. “I hate that you saw that. Who I am.”
Dread filled up the hole where he’d gone missing all those years before.
“What’s going to happen?”
Apprehension shook his head. “I don’t know. I could go to jail for a few months, but Ezra thinks I’ll most likely get probation.”
She nodded around the lump that filled her throat. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, Dakota. I deserve it. It’s a long time coming.”
Tension strained on the breeze, and the branch groaned beneath their weight.
“Why do you do that to yourself, Ryder?” Broaching it felt insurmountable, pushing into his darkness.
He wavered in it, pain rolling through his body, shadows haunting his eyes when he finally looked at her.
“It was easier. Not feeling it. The hole my mother left.” The words hitched in his throat, and he sniffed like he was trying to hold back the grief, but Dakota felt the shockwave of suffering, anyway. “It hurt so fucking bad that I just…” His head dropped in shame. “I just couldn’t, Dakota. I couldn’t. It’s like I’ve spent the last six years terrified of loving and terrified of never feeling it again.”
Sorrow drenched her heart, and she wanted to reach out and touch him so badly. Wrap her arms around him. Promise him it would be okay.
“But that has a way of spinning out of control, you know?” he continued. “Running from something you don’t think you can face, but the only thing you do is end up running straight into the grips of something so much worse. And before you know it, those claws are so deep in you, you can’t get free.”
“I would have been here for you. I…I waited here for you. For years, I waited out here for you.” She refused the embarrassment at the admission.
Low-pitched anguish vibrated from his chest, and he scrubbed both hands over the top of his head as he bent over. “It was better I didn’t come, Dakota. You couldn’t reach me then, and the last person you should have been around is someone like me.”
Contempt huffed from his nose. “You still shouldn’t be. You learned the proof of that last night.”
“I don’t care.”
He laughed a hollow sound, and he looked up through the branches at the star-speckled night. “You should, Dakota. You should.”
Then he dropped his attention to her. “But I promise you that I’m going to make a change. It’s going to take me some time to crawl out of the disaster I’ve created, but I promise that I’m going to be better.”
Peeking at him, she chewed at her bottom lip. “That’s good, Ryder. You deserve a good life. I want you to have one. Even though I know it hurts, thinking about your mom. But not remembering her will be the biggest regret of your life.”
He stared at her with an expression that knotted her stomach in fists. “I have so many regrets, Dakota. But I’m going to stop adding to them.”
He kept watching her for the longest time before he took her by surprise when he suddenly hopped off the branch. Standing on the ground, he turned his gaze up to her, and he crept so close that she felt his heat seep into her bare legs.
“I’m leaving soon.” Why it shot out of her like a desperate plea, she didn’t know. All she knew was it felt necessary. Like she was begging him for something.