Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
The white envelope was addressed to me. The return label read: Josh Martin, 355 Morning Ln, El Paso, TX 79835.
My heart flat-out stopped beating and the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood erect. In a frenzy, I ripped open the rest of the manila envelopes, and from within each magazine, a letter from Josh slid out. Ten in total. After all the years I’d spent looking for him, it had never occurred to me to search under his mother’s maiden name. The next moment a slow realization pushed the shock aside.
He’d been looking for me too.
Chapter Nineteen
Sydney
The sound of an incoming text woke me out of a fitful sleep. My mind scrambled for purchase when my eyes, dry and painful, cracked open. Above me there was an unfamiliar popcorn ceiling, the walls were an awful shade of dark green, and the air smelled musty.
The hell am I?
It took a moment before I remembered what had happened and where I was. Squinting at the screen, the phone read a little past midnight. Then I saw the text.
Scott: I’m outside. Open the door.
He was here. He’d come for me. A strong dose of pure joy shot through my veins, making my head spin like I was tripping.
No one had ever come for me. But Scott had––a man I’d once thought to be the most selfish creature on the planet. I’d been wrong about him just as much as he’d been wrong about me. He wasn’t selfish. On the contrary, he was an unexpected hero, a reluctant good guy in disguise. Too bad I was already married to him. If things had been different, we might have had a fighting chance. The knowledge sat heavy on my chest.
A reckoning was coming as clearly as the part in every horror movie where one of the dumbass characters says, “let’s get back to the cabin,” instead of getting in their car and driving away at the first sign of danger. Any day now, Frank’s secret was going to be revealed, and when that happened, I would inevitably lose Scott’s trust. And there was nothing I could do about it other than stand by and let it happen.
Jumping out of bed, I hurried to the cramped bathroom, splashed water on my face, and glanced in the mirror. After gathering all the letters, I’d driven back to the motel and holed up for the rest of the day reading and crying and chugging Mountain Dew (the only soda left in the hallway vending machine) like it was nectar of the gods. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d shed a single tear. Frank’s news had pushed me to the brink many times, but never over the edge. And now I couldn’t stop them from falling.
“Yikes.”
I looked like Don King. My hair was a tangled, combed-back mess. My eyes were nearly swollen shut, the left more than the right, and the skin around them raw. Under the florescent overhead light, I looked like I’d mopped the floors with my face and there was nothing to be done for it. Not now that he was at the door.
As I reached for the doorknob, I remembered that I was wearing a stained threadbare t-shirt and baggy sweatpants and debated changing for all of a minute. I was tired of hiding, tired of pretending that I was so much more put together than I really was.
At work, I was a rock star. Everywhere else in my life I was rock bottom. This was it. All I was. Full of holes, emotions worn out, nerves shot to hell from keeping everything bottled up. It was either going to send him running back to Jackson Hole or he’d stick.
I wanted him to stick, though. I really really wanted him to stick. Scott was turning out to be the most wonderful surprise of my life. I’d been an outlier since birth, searching for somewhere or someone to belong to, and with Scott, I’d found it. Even if it was only for a little while.
The motel was built in a horseshoe shape, my room on the ground floor. So when I opened the door to an empty sidewalk I was a little surprised. It was March and yet no one had told Pennsylvania. The cold hit me all at once, the damp kind that gets into your mended bones and makes them hurt. As the stitch on the left side of my rib cage liked to remind me.
A clap of thunder boomed overhead, a storm imminent. Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself and took a small step out, looked left and right, found not a soul in sight. Then I spotted him, a tall lone figure exiting a parked SUV and my heart sighed. He marched toward me wearing an inscrutable expression. Blank but stern? That’s the best way to describe it. His mouth set in a straight, uncompromising line. His eyes hawkish, sharp. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I didn’t have long to wonder.