Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 39538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 198(@200wpm)___ 158(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 198(@200wpm)___ 158(@250wpm)___ 132(@300wpm)
Visiting friends in the area, he shows the spirit of Christmas in every smile, the joy of living with every glint in his eyes, and his “Fa-la-la” is nothing to sneeze at, either. Cole may be hotter than a hot toddy, but Megan hasn’t come back to Treepoint to find someone to snuggle up with in front of a fireplace, build snowmen with, or find the true meaning of Christmas.
Yet that is exactly what she gets. Together, Cole and the town show her that not all of what you see is real, and only by giving of herself will she have the power to let go of the past.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
The snow began to fall when she hit Jamestown city limits, barely discernable droplets of water melting the instant they hit the windshield. Those that survived were swooshed away with one swish of the windshield wiper, as if the tiny dots never existed. Just like the small child she had carried, who had found life for a few tiny milliseconds on Earth.
As the bridge to Treepoint came into view, the snow started to blanket the ground. The flakes lasted a few seconds longer on the road than the ones on the window, the salt breaking it down to slush as the tires rolled over it until it was an ugly, muddy mess. Just as she had been broken and swept away by a trusted individual at fourteen. Manipulated, she had been thrust out of childhood and into the adult world she had no clue how to navigate, becoming putty in his hands.
Flipping the wipers onto high, she saw the bridge ahead. She didn’t have to make the turn onto the bridge. She could keep driving on past, just keep going on. In three hours, she could be in Lexington. In four, Louisville. No one knew her in either cities. She could start over fresh. No one would know her name, that her parents had to sell their home because of how badly she had humiliated them, nor that she had nearly taken the life of a newborn, believing it to be hers when she hadn’t been able to accept her own was dead.
To put the cherry on top of the mistakes she had made, the child she nearly killed was the President’s of The Last Riders, a motorcycle club that had earned a reputation of being ruthless and never leaving a score unsettled.
So far, they had left her alone. She was sure her stay in a mental care facility for seventeen months had held their revenge in check.
Each day of the two years she had lived at a halfway house afterward, she expected it to be her last. Would they make her death look like an accident, or would they make it plain that The Last Riders had settled their score?
When she left the halfway house, there wasn’t a night she didn’t go to bed expecting to wake listening for any suspicious noises until exhaustion allowed her to sleep.
Working from home, she had lived a solitary existence until a week ago when she came to a stark conclusion—her life was so barren and miserable that death would be a blessing. Even God didn’t care enough to put an end to her life, and she was too much of a coward to do it herself.
That was why she was going back to Treepoint. She had worked two remote jobs until she gave both jobs her notice. Packing up what little possessions she had, she filled her newly-purchased secondhand car with gas then started driving. She drove until she couldn’t drive anymore then pulled over at a rest stop to sleep a few hours before driving again. She had one destination in mind—Treepoint.
When she switched her blinker on as she neared the bridge, the light turned red, preventing her from turning.
Staring at the red light, Megan knew it was an omen, warning her away from Treepoint.
When the light turned green, her foot remained on the brake, and a honking horn had a smile forming on her lips as she released the brake and made the turn onto the bridge.
She was surprised the old bridge didn’t crumble beneath her as she crossed it; she had burned so many bridges before she was taken away. There wasn’t one person in the whole town who would be happy she was back.