Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 34955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34955 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 175(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
“Relax. I can’t kill the preacher. She’d never forgive me, and after twenty-four hours without her last week, I won’t do that shit again.”
King’s eyebrows rose. “What did her dad do?”
My teeth clenched tightly again as the molars ground against each other painfully. I inhaled sharply, needing to calm the beast in my chest, wanting to destroy all who upset her. She was light, fucking sunshine, and warmth. Capri held the power to reach my cold center and heat it.
“Told her things she didn’t need to know,” I said, watching her. Her smile gives me some form of ease, if not enough.
“About you?” he asked.
Yes and no. She had forgiven me for my actions and accepted that she was mine to protect, and she had been since the moment I laid eyes on her.
“It’s not that he told her about Beauden. It’s the memories he unleashed that she’d forgotten. They’re,” I paused as my throat tightened. “Haunting her.”
King heaved a sigh, then glanced over his shoulder at Capri talking to Miller as she slowed. “She seems happy out there.” His eyes came back to me.
I nodded. “She is. But it’s the nights. When she wakes up screaming that are going to destroy me.” The words just came out. I wasn’t one to share so damn much. When had that shit changed for me? Why was I spewing like some emotional bitch?
I reached for another cigarette from my pocket and walked past King toward the track. If I could see her, hear her voice, see her smile at me. Maybe then I could keep from going after the preacher and ripping his life apart with all that I knew.
• Ten •
Esther was as dramatic as my mother.
Capri
The fact that no stable hand but Jim would make eye contact with me was understandable. I no longer felt like they were angry at me or didn’t want me here. I completely understood. But if I let myself dwell on it too long, I began to get that heavy knot in my stomach—the one where I felt guilty for all Thatcher had done in his need to protect me.
After waking up with night terrors for a week, Thatcher started wrapping me up in his arms, our chests touching and sleeping with me like that. Three nights in, it was working. I slept free of images of the man I had long forgotten appearing in my dreams. The ever-present tension in his shoulders had eased, too. He wasn’t on edge, ready to strike anymore. I began to fear for the safety of anyone who came near me.
Jim gave me a nod as I passed him. His friendly smile always reminding me that I wasn’t a pariah here. Just that the others were terrified of Thatcher. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see my mom’s number. She’d called three times this morning. I continued to ignore her. Not today, Mom.
“Mornin’ Capri,” Sebastian called out as he walked out of the office with his hair mused. His hand was clutching Royal’s as she followed him out. Her lips slightly swollen, and her shirt hastily tucked into her jeans.
I grinned. “Good morning,” I replied.
“You gonna take Bloodline out and see if you can break his time from Monday?” he asked me.
That was what King had suggested. “Yeah,” I told him, but I wasn’t sure that Bloodline would beat that time on the track alone. He seemed to excel in races because he was competitive. I’d mentioned that to Miller, but he did not appear to agree. Although he wouldn’t argue with me. Thanks to Thatcher, no one would. It was annoying.
“Royal wants to watch,” he said. “When are you taking him out?”
I glanced down the stalls to see Miller talking to one of the new stable hands as he prepped Bloodline. “I’d say in about ten minutes.”
The gorgeous blonde at his side had long legs, the kind I had envied most of my life and every other perfect feature that the Lord could have handed out. She was also friendly, witty, and had a fire in her spirit. If she didn’t make Sebastian so ridiculously happy, I would be jealous of the other woman. She was everything I wished I could be but lacked in body and personality.
“I watched you on Nemesis last week, and that was incredible. Y’all were flying,” Royal said in her thick drawl that I was sure made most men’s knees weak.
“If we can get Thatcher to let her take Zephyr at full speed again, you’ll be really impressed,” Sebastian said, smiling down at her like she were his sun and he was orbiting around her.
“He’s the massive one that I won’t get near,” she asked.
He chuckled. “Yeah.”
“He’s Thatcher’s?”
Sebastian nodded again.
“Figures.”
That made Sebastian laugh.
Her ice blue eyes that had slate outer rings swung back to me. “You ride that beast of a horse?”