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)
“What the hell?” Eddy whispered.
“I swear. I have proof!” Felicia promised. “Text messages. Hundreds of them. She made me do it. I’m sorry, Boone. I’m sorry. But she forced me to. It’s either I kill Nettie, or she kills my mom! She’s already taken everything from her! Her livelihood. Her child. Her future. I didn’t know what else to do!”
This was the first time I’d ever seen Felicia actually passionate about someone other than herself.
It was weird…and convincing.
“You could’ve tried coming to us, Felicia.”
“Not Felicia,” Felicia whispered. “Karen.”
Oh, what the fuck.
I didn’t think that a name could get any worse and fit any better, but then she’d said “Karen.”
“Who the fuck is Karen?”
“Me,” Felicia answered. “That was what my mother named me before Gail stole me.”
Sawyer scrubbed at his face. “You could’ve gone about this a completely different way.”
“You were in on it, if you were about to tell me that I needed to come to you.”
“I wasn’t in on anything,” Sawyer snarled. “I’ve done nothing but support you for your entire life. Yet you’ve treated us all like garbage. I just thought you were just like her. I didn’t know that you weren’t mine until about a year ago.”
Felicia looked gob smacked.
“You’re lying.”
“Time for a talk.” Sawyer looked at Black. “Can I follow you to the station?”
“I’m going to the station?” Felicia looked sick.
“Are you going to the station?” Boone asked, clearly losing it.
Felicia nodded. “I told you why I did it!”
“That’s my wife!” my husband roared.
Husband.
I’d been thinking that word all night, and even saying it a few times, but it hadn’t gotten old yet.
It was the best word in the world, in my opinion. Especially tied to the man that held my heart.
Felicia flinched at Boone’s roared words.
On the outside, Boone always appeared quiet and carefree. Approachable and kind.
But on the inside, there was this raging beast of a man that got mad when you messed with the things that he loved.
And Felicia had just tried to kill the thing he loved most in this world.
“I…I…” Felicia looked terrified.
As she should be.
“You tried to kill my wife, Felicia.”
“Karen…”
“Not right now,” I heard Gentry say. “Come on. You’re going to the station. Y’all can sort it out there.”
Boone didn’t move out from in front of me until Felicia was escorted out in handcuffs.
Denver, Sawyer, Margery, and a few others went with them.
Boone turned to me and surveyed me, taking in every single thing there was to take in of me before he said, “Are you okay?”
I picked a piece of plaster dust out of his hair before saying, “I’m fine. I promise.”
The baby kicked right then, and I reached out and took his hand, placing it on my belly.
His eyes closed, and the sheen of gray lifted slightly from his face.
“What’s all over the front of your pants, man?” Hux called out.
The way his eyes were sparkling, though, I knew that he knew exactly what it was.
“My wife.”
Again with those damn full-body shivers.
Nineteen
No amount of essential oils can fix batshit crazy.
—Nettie’s secret thoughts
Nettie
I was married.
I was practically floating down the hallway to the kitchen when I came to an abrupt stop when I saw the amount of people in the kitchen.
There was Denver and his oldest daughter, Joe. Margery. Sawyer. Ida Bell, Koen. Oh, and my husband.
He had a cup of coffee halfway to his lips, but paused when he saw me come in.
His eyes sparkled as he took in my attire.
“Fancy.” He grinned.
I moved toward him, pressed a kiss to his lips, and stole his coffee.
I took a healthy swallow, groaning at the perfectness of it.
“Do you want your own?” Boone asked as he trailed a hand down my butt.
“No.” I smiled and leaned into him while also resting my hips against the counter next to him. “What’s going on?”
“Came to give you both an update on Felicia,” he said. “She was truthful in what she says. Her mother—whom I met last night—was an old maid of ours. The maid got pregnant—I remember that—and left when she was almost to term. I thought it was understandable seeing as she was having a baby. Never saw her again. Not until last night, when the woman explained everything. Gail had come to her and asked to adopt her child after learning that hers had a heart condition. Maid said no. Obviously like any good mother would do. Then woke up a couple of weeks later in the hospital with no memory of what happened. She was told that she was in an accident and her daughter died. She went along with it at first, but her memories were surfacing a little bit at a time. Then some time about five years ago, she tried a new track for therapy, and they were able to unlock her memories of that day. She’d been taken by a couple of men. Locked to a hospital bed and injected with some drugs. At one point she remembers seeing Gail, then nothing. The next time she remembers waking up she was in the hospital with no baby and a story about a car wreck.”