Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
I’d been to enough of DJ’s practices that I knew some of these mothers, and the one who’d spoken about her husband being the man’s parole officer was none other than Maddison Jane, the biggest gossip among the entire group.
At the last practice I’d taken DJ to, she’d been the one who said that her kids weren’t allowed to ride four wheelers because they were dangerous. But then she went on to say how her kids were taking horseback riding lessons to give them an ‘eclectic’ background.
If there was a picture next to stupidity in the dictionary, it would be of her.
“Wow, he’s really put on some muscle since the last time I saw him,” Edith, one of the other mothers, not-so-quietly whispered. “Do you think he has AIDS?”
I stiffened.
“I don’t see him allowing anybody, inmates or not, to do anything to his butthole,” Maddison said. “And I read his file while my husband wasn’t looking. He lives back at his house now.”
“That place on the Old Highway?” Edith asked. “That place was trashed over the last four years. Everybody used it as a dumping ground for all their unwanted shit. Nobody took care of it at all.”
My brows furrowed.
I didn’t remember any houses on the Old Highway but one, and if that was Evander’s house, and this town didn’t treat it well, I would be so pissed.
I’d been in Hostel, Texas for all of three and a half years. Though, my father had been here a lot longer than that. As had my sister.
Me, I’d only gotten here after my mother decided to tell me about my father. They’d had a weird sort of relationship when we were younger.
Mom and Dad had met and fallen in love. Then, four years into their marriage, it’d fallen apart. However, my mom had been pregnant with me and my sister at the time, and they’d stayed together long enough to split their kids up right down the middle.
My mother got the oldest of the four children and the youngest—me. My father got the other two.
Then they never spoke to each other, or of each other, ever again. If we tried, it was shut down. The consequences—IE my mother freaking the fuck out—were never worth it. We learned to let it go, and not ask questions, or we’d regret it.
At least not until my mother was on her deathbed.
Then she’d told me that not only had she known of my father’s whereabouts this entire time, but that I had a twin sister.
My mom had moved as far away from Hostel, Texas as she could possibly get and had married another farmer up in Iowa. I’d grown up on a farm, just like my siblings had done with my biological father.
However, the problem with my step-father was that he hated my guts. He’d hated me with such a passion, in fact, that he’d shown it every single day of my life.
And without my mother there to be the buffer between us, I had nothing left holding me there.
So I’d taken a risk and moved to Hostel, Texas.
I’d bought my own land, although it was just a small amount—twenty acres—and made an attempt at meeting my family.
The moment my sister saw me, she’d thrown her arms around me like we were long lost twins—though, technically, we were. Apparently, my father hadn’t kept my existence a secret like my mother had theirs.
From the moment we met, it was like the twenty-six years separating us had never happened.
And now, three and a half years later, we were making up for lost time.
The place I bought when I’d arrived was actually touching the land that I assumed belonged to Evander.
Though, if I had to guess, Evander actually owned quite a bit of it. There was property along the Old Highway with an old, run down house at the front of it. And surrounding it was a shit ton of trash, old abandoned furniture and more junk than I could name.
I felt like shit.
The people of this town had treated that property like a dump, and they didn’t give a shit that they’d done it, either.
“He sure has filled that body out, though. Prison was good for him.”
I felt sick at Edith’s words.
Prison was good for him? What the actual fuck?
Prison wasn’t good for anyone.
And then I berated myself.
I didn’t know that man. All I knew was what I’d observed of him now, and that was very little. I’d met him at the feed store, sat with him at dinner, and he’d said all of twelve words. Also, he’d carried some of my bags to my truck.
That was it.
There was literally nothing else that I knew about the man to know whether he was a good man or not.
My instincts were always spot-on, though. I knew when a person was bad. I also knew when a person was good.