Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Bile burned its way up my throat.
“I’m dying, Antoinette. And it’s my dying wish that you’ll pull your head out of your ass and finally put my grandson out of his misery,” she said. “It’s not his fault that he loves with all of his heart. His worst sin is thinking his mother was a good person. You can’t hold that against him. Not and look your baby in the eyes and tell her that you’re a good person, too.”
Boone called right then, making my belly twist.
“He won’t be mad at you,” Margery promised.
Except, that was not the case. He was mad.
Big mad.
Thirteen
That awkward moment when you sing the wrong part of the song with confidence.
—Boone’s secret thoughts
Boone
Anger was my constant friend the rest of the day.
That anger morphed to rage as I pulled into my driveway and saw the text message from my mother.
I didn’t bother looking at it until I got inside and collapsed onto the couch, exhausted and soul weary.
I wanted nothing more than to delete that message from my mother, but the thumbnail of the video had me frowning and clicking on it despite my better judgment.
Terror clawed its way through my veins as I sat watching the video from our past as Nettie stood with her body in front of the players. Protecting them from a gunman with the only thing she could wield—her body.
What had started out as a scrimmage had turned into something so much more.
A soccer scrimmage for high schoolers.
It should’ve been nothing more than that.
Only, one dumbass parent came to the game drunk off his ass and sporting a chip on his shoulder. He’d taken offense that his kid had gotten a red card and had barged onto the field like his kid was in danger when she most certainly was not.
Words were exchanged between the refs and the coaches, then the parent was pulling a gun out and waving it around at the players and coaches.
“What are you doing?”
I looked up at the woman who’d come walking around the corner of the guest bedroom where she’d taken up residence since she’d moved in.
It felt good to have her in my home.
It felt worse that she was in my home and not in my bed.
“Watching a video that was sent to me by my mother,” I grumbled.
She came to stand behind me and looked at the video over my shoulder. “At the time,” she said quietly, “I didn’t know that I was pregnant.”
But she had been.
I was so freakin’ tired of the love of my life’s life being in danger.
What did I have to do to make sure that she was protected and safe?
“I love that little commentary, though,” Nettie drawled.
I glanced at the follow-up message from my mother. “How embarrassing. Can you get it taken down? I don’t want this associated with the Windsor name.”
Embarrassing?
First off, Nettie had nothing to do with that.
That was a crazed parent.
Second, if I were to ask for anything to be associated with our name, it would be a famous soccer player putting herself in front of a loaded gun to save children.
But maybe that was just me.
“She’s such a bitch,” I said. “How do you feel about moving to Norway?”
“Don’t they make their babies sleep outside in the freezing cold?” Nettie asked.
I paused. “That might be Norway…”
She plopped down on the couch next to me and propped her feet into my lap.
I took one foot, slipped the two socks off, and started to massage.
“Want to tell me what you were thinking?”
“You mean when I was getting a gun aimed at me, or when I was at Koen’s place watching Ida Bell today?”
Both.
I wanted to know every thought that crossed her mind, important or not.
“I know what you were thinking with the other incident,” I said. “Let’s talk about what you were doing with my grandmother watching Ida Bell.”
She sighed and dropped her head to the couch arm.
“I’m thinking that y’all are sitting there with your thumbs up your asses, and nothing is being accomplished,” she grumbled. “Sorry that I wanted to make sure that your sister knows your grandmother before she dies!”
“Whoa,” I said as I stopped, placing one of my hands on her knee. “She’s not going to die.”
She was going to die.
But maybe if I spoke it into existence, she would live forever.
Out of my entire family, Grams was my favorite.
I loved Sawyer so much it hurt to think about him not here one day. But Grams? It would be like having a slice of my heart and soul forcibly ripped away, never to be found again.
She was my one supporter over the last decade of my life when Nettie wasn’t around. My one and only true confidant that never judged, never pushed, and never, ever let me down.
“Not today, perhaps,” she agreed. “But she definitely doesn’t have much longer to live. And, just sayin’, but if I didn’t get the chance to meet and know Margery, I would be so pissed.”