Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 91438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
I couldn’t hear Silas’ reply, but I didn’t need to.
Mostly because my mom repeated his answer verbatim.
“Oh, I know you don’t think you did anything, but you did. Dallas said he caught her crying, but decided to leave her alone. He also says there’s been a lot of drinking going on. He finds all of her bottles in the trash the next morning,” my mother said.
He’d been going through my trash?
What the fuck?
And I knew he had to be going through them.
I was the one who’d walked the fucking bags out to the trash can.
He’d have had to physically pull out the bag to know there were bottles in there.
Not like there were a lot of bottles.
Granted, there were some, but not enough to count as excessive.
This time I heard Silas’ reply.
“She’s allowed to drink, Reba. She spent eight years having her life dictated to her. Let her live her life without you all second guessing every single thing she does,” Silas reprimanded her gently.
Then I heard the distinct sound of Silas’ screen door opening.
Last night I’d remembered the grating screech, and I wondered how I’d not heard it when my mother had entered.
I heard the two of them talking more from the front porch and decided to go ahead and get dressed in the clothes he’d left me.
They looked new.
And in style.
All of my clothes were still what I wore in high school. Which meant I had a lot of things that probably wouldn’t ever be acceptable on a twenty nine year old.
I wore them anyway, though.
Not like I had much choice.
Maybe I should make a stop by the Goodwill later.
They would surely have something better than what I had.
Like the pants and shirt he’d left me draped over the edge of the bed.
I picked through them, seeing that there were no bra or panties.
So I did what any normal woman would do.
Went to Silas’ dresser drawers and pulled every single one of them open until I found the underwear.
I laughed when I saw how high up they came on my belly, giggling as quietly as I could as I slipped my feet into the jeans.
The pants fit a little loosely in the waist, but fit perfectly everywhere else.
The shirt fit everywhere but the boob area, but I didn’t think that mattered as much as it could have since it was just a simple red, fitted t-shirt.
The only thing that was wrong with it was the fact that I had no bra to cover up my nipples.
And the tightness over the breast area was accentuating that fact.
“It fits,” Silas rumbled from the doorway, causing me to jump and turn.
I had to smile when Silas’ eyes automatically went to my breasts.
Such a typical man.
“How are you getting past that creaky porch door?” I asked, tugging my shirt down to cover my belly.
He smiled.
“Magic,” he answered, starting to walk towards me.
“So you know my mom,” I accused.
He nodded. “Yep.”
“You knew who I was the entire time?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yep.”
He wasn’t ashamed that he hadn’t told me at all. He just said ‘yep’ like it wasn’t that big of a deal.
“She seemed friendly with you…do you hang out with my dad and mom a lot?” I asked.
His eyes widened slightly.
“Not your dad, no,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”
I wondered what he meant by ‘not your dad,’ but he was gone before I could ask him.
So I followed him, shoeless, and came to a stop when I got to the living room.
“Wow,” I said in awe. “This is nice.”
The living room, kitchen, dining room, and what looked to be a study were all one huge, open space.
The walls were what looked like real tree logs stripped of the bark, and the ceilings had huge beams running along the rafters.
There was a large, brown leather couch in the middle of the room, facing what had to be the largest TV screen I’d ever seen.
And the kitchen was to die for.
Beautiful mahogany cabinets with black granite counter tops rounded off the living space with their simple but elegant addition to the large space.
All of it made me smile at the man who resembled that description to a T. Simple but elegant.
Silas was standing at the kitchen sink, putting water into a bottle.
My mouth went dry when I saw the look he aimed at me over his shoulder.
Sex and hunger.
Geez.
I took a step back, and his eyes changed, going to curious.
“Yeah, I put a lot of time and effort into this place,” he said, screwing the lid down tight onto his bottle and making his way toward me.
He grabbed a hold of my hand on the way, walking and talking.
“I’ll drop you off at your house so you can go change. I’ve already called one of my boys to get your car. They should have it there in time for you to leave for work,” Silas said, leading me out to his garage.
I was thankful that he handed me a different helmet this time.
It was one that covered my face completely, the only thing anyone would be able to make out was my hair…but I tucked that into the helmet, too.
Perfect.
I smiled at Silas as he watched me do this with a small smile on his face.
“Embarrassed to be seen with me?” He asked as he tugged his own helmet on.
I shook my head. “No. I just don’t want to see my mother.”
And that was the God’s honest truth.
I was tired of seeing her.
All she could do was go on and on about how sorry she was that I’d had to go to prison, and how she prayed for eight years, every single day, that I came out in one piece.
Seriously, I loved the hell out of my mother, but I didn’t love her smothering me.
It was as if she was trying to make up for the eight years, but she couldn’t, and instead it felt as if she was suffocating me.
He actually looked relieved when I said that.
“So you don’t mind if you’re seen with me?” He confirmed.