Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
“I understand that,” she says softly. “She was still his wife and he was defending her. The same way my mother defended my father. They each just…ignored the shitty cheating parts and clung to what was good.”
“Yeah, well—it took me a while to realize that it was never about defending her. The lawsuits were over with, your mom is easy to block on social media—”
“What? Why? No! Oh god.” Her eyes close and her face glows pink. “Did she leave reviews on your business page?”
“Yeah.” And her blush is damn cute. “Or she’d reply to people posting on my pages and tell them not to trust the results of my inspections, because I could be bribed.”
Her face goes a brighter red. And though it’s adorable, the depth of her embarrassment is also painful to see.
“It’s all right,” I assure her. “It was irritating now and then—I’m pretty sure that shit I said to Harris was shortly after I had to delete another of those comments—but it’s nothing at this point. I’m done with all the Hatfield and McCoy shit. I wasn’t lying when I said that I didn’t think of the Walkers much at all anymore.”
“For a long time, I didn’t think of the Knowles much, either. Aside from when Harris mentioned you, but that was just—” She shrugs, as if to show how nothing it was. “Until they moved in and my mom told me…well, all the shit she told me. Then I despised you again.”
Because she’s spent the last eighteen months dealing with the fallout. “I won’t pretend I didn’t get some satisfaction out of seeing Angela Walker come to him for help, not after all the shit she said and did over the years—or that I didn’t feel there was some poetic justice in her not having the cash to pay off the county because she’d spent it on all those lawsuits. But his gloating left a real bad taste in my mouth. Partially because gloating when you’ve so clearly won is just shitty behavior—”
“This, coming from a man who shouted ‘fuck yes’ when I finally laughed.”
I grin, because I’m still feeling good about that. “Spontaneous celebrations are exempt.”
“If you say so.” But she looks as if she’s close to laughing again. “I interrupted you. Go on. You were saying his gloating was shitty.”
“That was part of it. The rest was because he always went on about defending my mother. Protecting her name. But while he was gloating, every fucking word out of his mouth was about destroying everything your father once owned, everything he’d cared about. That’s what was getting him off. I realized then, there was no loyalty to my mother. For twenty years, he hated your father, but it wasn’t because your dad stole my mom from him. It wasn’t because your dad ruined his marriage or his happiness or broke his heart. Your dad stole his pride, and my father couldn’t fucking deal with that.”
“Oh,” she says softly. “You think he felt emasculated when she ran off with my dad?”
“Yeah. So when that man’s wife came asking him for help, he razed everything that man ever had to the ground and finally proved he had the bigger dick. And as unbearable as he was to be around before, he was worse after. Then he married Karilee.”
That detour catches her off-guard. She stares at me for a long second before venturing, “Are you…upset that he replaced your mother?”
“Not at all. Like I said, we aren’t around each other much—even during the holidays. But he remarried this year and I felt…obligated.” There’s no other way to put it. “He’s got a lodge not far from here. They wanted to make a Christmas get-together a new family tradition, so they invited me and Karilee’s parents—and her brothers and sister. All teenagers and absolute shits.”
“Her siblings are teenagers?” She looks at me in horror. “Is Karilee that young, too?”
“She can legally drink, but yeah. He needed his ego stroked, I guess.”
“Pretty sure she’s not just stroking his ego.” She studies me. “I understand the obligation to go, though. Did you fight with him and that’s why you left?”
I wish. “Karilee tried to join me in the shower.”
“No!” Abbie jackknifes up to sitting, jaw dropped open. “Your new stepmother!? Tell me you’re joking.”
“Not a bit. She came prancing in, bare ass naked, and slid open the shower door.”
“What did you do?” She covers her mouth with her steepled hands, her eyes alight. “I’m sorry but this is the most amazingly horrible thing I’ve ever heard! It’s like a soap opera! What did you do?”
“Grabbed a towel and got the fuck out of there.”
“Did she say anything when she opened the shower?”
“‘Oops!’ But like this.” I thrust out my chest and flutter my eyelashes. “‘Oops!’”
Abbie doubles over, clutching helplessly at my shoulder as she laughs. “I-I’m s-sorry,” she manages after a minute, wiping her eyes. “It m-must have been tra-traumati-traumatizing.”