Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Sia stared at him, and then held out her hand. Cowboy slowly got to his feet and came across the room. He lay down on the bed behind Sia and put his arm over her waist, hugging her close. I met his eyes; he nodded.
Sia took my hand, her head on my shoulder. I stared at the ceiling and then, closing my eyes, said, “My grandfather met my grandmother in Sweden. He was there on business. Long story short, he used his Cajun charm and she fell madly in love with him.” I shook my head. “She didn’t know it at the time, of course, but she was his ultimate dream come true. A true Aryan. My grandfather brought her back to Louisiana . . .” Another face popped into my head. “With her daughter in tow. Aia . . . my mother. Her real father died of cancer when she was only one.”
“Aia . . . such a pretty name.” Sia stroked her hand along my chest.
I nodded. “She was pretty too.” I smiled, remembering her telling me children’s stories from her home. A country she would never see again. “She grew up in Louisiana, and the family became the most important family there. Mamma was only three when she moved. She was a Cajun really, but my grandmother always spoke to her in Swedish so she would never forget where she was from. My grandfather is a businessman, successful too. And now he had a wife and a beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed stepdaughter to match.” Sia’s eyes were huge; she must have heard the bitterness in my tone. “I don’t not like your coloring, Sia. Color doesn’t mean shit to me.”
“Okay,” she said softly. I needed to feel her lips. I needed her to know that I meant what I said. So I pressed my lips against hers and kissed her. She sighed against my mouth. When I moved back, I spoke again.
“When my mamma was eighteen, she took a trip to New Orleans. She went into a jazz bar . . .” My chest tightened. “And there she met Dominic Durand.”
“Your papa.”
I nodded. “My papa was a jazz musician.” Tears pricked at my eyes when I thought back to our old house, practically falling down and riddled with problems. But I didn’t see that as a kid. I just saw it as my fucking home. My haven where no one said shit to me about my skin or who my parents were. A place where I laughed, and listened to my papa play his music as me and my mamma danced along.
I trudged up the path to my house, aching, my back still sore from what those pricks had done to me last week. They’d clipped me with one of their trucks. Then left me on the side of the road until I could pick myself up and go home. It’d taken me days to shake off the majority of the pain. I was pissed. I was so fucking pissed at the world and everyone in it that I practically pulsed with hatred. Then, when I turned the corner toward my house, I stopped dead. My parents sat on the rickety old porch swing, hand in hand. My mamma’s head was on my papa’s shoulder as they looked out at the marshes that lay in the distance. They were talking, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. It didn’t matter. Because my mamma smiled so big at my papa that I knew whatever it was, it made her happy. Made him happy.
“Coon-lover,” those guys had called my mamma. “Coon slut. Spook bitch.” I clenched my jaw. “Half-breed. Fucking mongrel,” they’d spat at me as they knocked me to the ground.
“They fell in love.” I tried not to fucking crumble at the thought of them on that porch swing. When they were happy . . . unlike the last time I’d seen them. “My mamma would go to New Orleans to see my papa, but my grandfather stopped her from going so much when it was time for her to marry someone else. Someone he’d chosen.” I laughed bitterly. “He had no idea she was running off to meet a black man.”
“He picked someone white for her to marry,” Sia filled in.
I nodded. Then I smiled. “My papa, as pigheaded as he is”—I cleared my throat—“was—found out, after a frantic call from my mamma. He left everything and came to get her. Came to that hick town and walked right up to their door and demanded to see her.” I laughed, imagining that day. “My grandfather nearly had a heart attack. But my mamma saw him . . .” I smiled, remembering all the nights by the fire that they’d told me this story. When I was sick, it would make me feel better. When I was sad, it would cheer me up. Now? It just fucking destroyed me, knowing it was the beginning of the end for them. All because they loved each other.