Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76757 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76757 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
“What’s wrong?” He takes another step closer. His hand reaches for me, but I take a step back, hitting the counter.
“Stop.” I hold my hands up to keep him from moving toward me any further. “You threw me away.” I hate the emotion I hear in my voice. I can’t remember the incident, but I know what my mother told me. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about the man who didn’t want me. The one who tossed me to the side, not bothering to come to the hospital to see me. How could he be so callous? From the look in his eyes, I meant something to him. Then again, maybe that’s just my mind playing tricks on me. I want to believe I was more to him, but the truth is in his actions. He never showed up. All these years later, he never tried to find me or come visit.
“No.” He takes another step and then another until we’re standing toe-to-toe. My hands press against his rock-hard chest, trying to maintain some type of distance between us. “I made a mistake, but I never threw you away, Delaney. I tried to call you. You wouldn’t answer your phone or return my messages. I came here to see you, and your mother said you’d found someone else, that you were moving in with him and moving on. Without me,” he grits out. His dark brown eyes plead with me to believe him. Is he an actor?
“What? That’s absurd. Why would she tell you that?” I try to think back to the conversations we’ve had about him. She told me he didn’t want me. She said that he told me to leave and never come back. That’s what caused my accident. I was upset and driving. I couldn’t see through the tears and my broken heart. That’s what my mother told me. Why is he lying to me?
“Delaney.” He lifts his calloused hand to my cheek and cradles it. “I promise you, I didn’t throw you away. I made a mistake our last night together. I showed up, but I was a few hours late. I was wrong to keep you waiting.”
“What do you mean?” My voice cracks as the words form on my lips.
“I was supposed to meet you, Laney. You were headed back to college the next day, and it was our last night together. You said you had something you wanted to talk to me about and I chickened out. I wasn’t ready to face my feelings for you.”
“Your feelings?” I whisper.
He nods, swallows hard, and his next words stall my heart in my chest. “I was in love with you.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” the tall guy with longer hair says. “We need some help hauling this out to the trailer.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” the man before me tells him. He doesn’t once pull his eyes away from me.
I realize I don’t know his name. We have all this history. History I don’t remember. History that has only been filled in bit by bit from my mother. History that, from the look in his eyes, I know nothing about. Is he telling the truth? His story and Mom’s don’t add up, but the look in his eyes, it’s clear he believes with everything in him that what he says is true. I can see and feel it coming off him in waves. “What’s your name?”
“Kent, well, Kenton is my full name.” He runs his thumb across my cheek as my heart races. “You would call me Kenton if you were mad at me.” He smiles softly, the gesture lighting up his face.
“Oh my God,” I whisper.
“What?” His shoulders stiffen, but his dark eyes still bore into mine.
“That’s why she hated it.”
“Who hated what, baby?” His tone is soft, dare I say loving? It’s unexpected, but not unwelcome. The way he looks at me, the reverence in his voice, I can feel it deep inside that I was important to him. That he was important to me. I just wish I could remember.
“My mother. She hated the name, but it was my choice. The one thing I could control. I didn’t let her stop me.”
“Delaney, what name? What are you talking about?”
I swallow hard as I prepare to drop a bomb on him. I’m sure he assumes with the accident that things worked out how he wanted them to. Then again, if what he’s saying is true. He doesn’t know. I don’t know what to believe, but I do know it’s him. I might not fully remember, but I see him in my dreams, and she’s his spitting image. “My daughter. My mother hates her name. To this day, she still complains.”
“Your daughter?” he asks, swallowing hard.
I nod.
“What’s her name, Delaney?” The hand that’s not cupping my cheek grips my hip, tethering me to him.