Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
“Are you eating all the chocolate raisins, Button?” I nuzzle my face into Reagan’s neck.
She giggles. “No.”
I eat the one pinched between her two fingers.
“Daddy!”
This girl … she’s the only thing keeping me from losing my mind while Josie tries to distance herself from me. I’m not letting her go again. I won’t abandon her. And I’m not giving her a choice in the matter. I will save her.
“Is Josie coming over?”
I sit next to her at the table and grab a handful of raisins from the box. “You won’t see Josie this time. Sorry.”
“Is she still sick?”
“She’s better, but she’s not here. She went back to Iowa to visit her parents.”
Reagan shrugs. “Okay.”
I smile. It is okay. Everything will be okay. It has to be.
CHAPTER NINE
Shortly after Josie turned seventeen, she did a genealogy project for history. I asked her to a movie with me and some other friends, but she needed to work on her project by asking her mom about her biological dad.
Six of us went to the movie without Josie. Less than an hour into it, an employee interrupted the movie, calling my name. I was a little embarrassed and a little freaked out. It had to be an emergency.
Did something happen to my mom or Chad?
Funny … I didn’t spare a thought for my dad.
I followed the employee to the entrance where Josie stood. Her eyes looked like red spider webs. She’d been crying.
“Josie, what happened?”
She hugged me and started crying again. I didn’t know what to do, so I held her for what seemed like forever.
“Let’s get out of here, okay?” I said, shifting my body so she was hugged to my side.
We climbed into my old truck, and everything went silent. Josie no longer cried. She stared out the window, holding completely still. Eerily still.
I did the only thing I knew to do … the thing I knew she’d do. I reached my hand across the console and laced my fingers together with hers. It drew a shaky breath from her. And it scared me. I had never seen Josie like that.
“My father,” she whispered. “My biological father … he…” she swallowed hard “…raped my mother. She was on her way to her car. It was late and dark after her class. My dad was waiting for her at home. It was their anniversary, and he had a candlelit dinner waiting for her. But she never came home that night. One of his officer friends came to the house and told him someone found her on the ground next to her car. They called for help. She was at the hospital. Battered … but not broken.”
I squeezed her hand, at a loss for words.
She laughed, but it was far from a happy laugh. “Want to know why they kept me instead of aborting me?”
All I had was a slow nod.
“Because it was their anniversary, and they didn’t want it to forever be a reminder of something awful. So now … it’s the anniversary of …” She laughed a little more. That time it sounded slightly maniacal. “My conception. My fucking conception. How messed up is that?”
It was all very messed up.
“I have half the DNA of a rapist. Didn’t expect to find that out when I sat down to discuss my project with my mom. I have evil running through my veins, and there is nothing I can do about it.”
I squeezed her hand again, and she squeezed mine back while turning her head toward me.
“I didn’t ask her, but I kinda read between the lines. If it had been a day earlier or a day later, I might not exist.”
Clearing the thickness from my throat, I found my voice. “Well, that would be tragic.”
She smiled. It made me feel like a king. I liked doing or saying anything to make Josie smile. It was the most tangible thing I never held in my hands, but god … I felt it everywhere.
“Drive, Colten.”
“Where are we going?”
She fastened her seat belt and stared out her window, releasing a soft sigh. “Anywhere.”
We drove out of town until we hit no other option but gravel roads and miles of corn fields. I pulled to a stop when the road I chose dead ended at a dirt circle drive, an old barn, and the remnants of a silo.
“I have a blanket in the back seat. We could get in the bed of the truck.”
Josie nodded. “Yeah.” She opened her door while I retrieved the blanket.
Before I made it to the back, she had the tailgate down and hopped into the bed. I jumped in behind her and spread out the blanket. When I sat with my back to the window, she nestled between my bent knees with her back to my chest. I hugged her to me, inhaling her sweet shampoo, absorbing her warmth, and imagining how awful life would be without her … fighting with feeling oddly thankful that someone raped her mom. It was confusing.