Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“You’re not my brother,” he seethed in disgust. “You stopped being my brother the moment you touched my niece.”
He was angry and he was drunk, but hearing him say those words was like a giant kick in the balls.
“The one woman I told you to stay away from and you went ahead and did it anyway. The one woman who was off limits to everyone. And you did it anyway. The one woman you knew was like a daughter to me. And you did it anyway.” His emotions started to get away from him. “The one woman I trusted you not to touch. AND. YOU. DID. IT. ANYWAY.”
I didn’t care who you were. Michael Western was a formidable man. And like this, he was fucking scary.
“I fell in love with her,” I said calmly.
“Love? LOVE?” He yelled. His eyes lit up with fire. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
He pulled out his gun and pointed it at my head. Adrenaline pounded through me but I refused to be intimidated.
“No, I’m not kidding you. I’m in love with her.”
He tightened his grip on his gun as he took a step toward me. “Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night? Is that what gets you through knowing you’re a sick sonofabitch who likes young girls.”
“She’s twenty-two. She’s a woman. Not a girl.”
He might have a gun pointed at my head, but I wasn’t going to let him brand me with that kind of bullshit.
“You’ve known her since she was born.”
My eyes narrowed. “Is that what you truly think of me? That I was a sick fuck lusting after her since she was a kid. Are you fucking serious? I don’t care how angry or fucked up you are right now, Bull, both you and I know that is not the case here. I fell in love with the woman, not the child. So you accuse me of that shit again and I swear to God, you’d better pull that trigger before I get to you.”
The air between us crackled with tension.
“I should kill you right here, right now.”
“For what? For loving Chastity? For wanting to protect her? For wanting to give her everything?” I took a step toward him so his gun was only inches from my forehead. “For treating her like the queen she is?”
“She wasn’t meant for you!” He hissed, his eyes wild. “This life wasn’t meant for her.”
I grabbed the end of his gun and pressed it against my forehead. “Then shoot me, Bull. Fucking put me out of my misery, then. Because I love her and if she’s not meant for me, then I might as well be dead. So you want to punish me, go right ahead. Put a bullet in my brain and this all goes away. What are you waiting for? Do it. DO IT!”
Our eyes locked and I could see the fury in his. A fury that came from his very soul. And I could see it, the want to end this, a need to punish me, the desperation for this to be done.
His finger trembled on the trigger, while his lips curled into a snarl before parting in a cry of anguish.
Frustrated at his inability to pull the trigger, he stepped back and fired rapid rounds into the sky. They rang out across the cemetery, causing a flock of birds to take flight from the poplar trees.
He glared at me. And I glared back, my pulse pounding in my ears.
“This isn’t finished,” he growled, taking a few unsteady steps backward. He stumbled over to the bottle of Jack Daniel’s laying on the grass and picked it up, while I remained rooted to the spot.
“You shouldn’t ride drunk,” I said calmly, like he hadn’t just had a gun pointed at my skull.
But he just looked at me and said nothing as he brushed past and disappeared up the hill and out of view.
CHASTITY
I was surprised when I didn’t hear anything about it the next day.
No phone call from my mom.
No interrogation from my brothers.
No gasps of surprise from my sisters-in-law.
No rant from my uncle.
I waited. All through class and then through a three-hour shift at Wax-It, expecting some kind of fall out. But nothing happened.
Just a weird radio silence.
But when I saw Ruger later that afternoon and he told me what happened at the cemetery, it all made sense.
Bull was obviously keeping it to himself while he processed it.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“The wedding is tomorrow, let’s focus on that and then worry about Bull and his reaction.”
Chance and Cassidy were getting married at Lannister Farm, a stunning bed and breakfast just out of town. Once upon a time it had been a massive apple farm and cannery, but as progress had swept through the county, the farm had been broken up into separate parcels of land. Now, the remaining farmhouse and apple grove were a popular place for weddings and weekend retreats.