Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
She was looking down at her hands, but her eyes were wide and her teeth were biting savagely into her lip.
She didn’t.
I stood up and turned to her, shock and anger warring in my veins.
“We couldn’t afford to eat,” I said to her.
“I had to work myself to the bone trying to run a cattle operation on my own at the age of twelve,” I hissed.
She didn’t look over.
“I got less than four hours of sleep a night for years,” I accused. “The first time I slept through the night was just a few weeks ago when I moved into an apartment above a barn.”
Denver hissed in a breath at that news.
“Dad’s cancer treatments were killer. He couldn’t do anything. I had to help him to the bathroom. I didn’t even graduate school the right way! I had to work with my teachers at night to get my credits!”
Still, my mother didn’t look up.
“I can’t believe you,” I whispered. “What kind of vicious, cruel, cold-hearted woman are you?” I accused. “You want to know why I don’t like to go by your stupid name? Because I think you’re a snake, and I don’t like being associated with snakes.”
My mother did look up at that.
“That name is perfect,” she hissed. “Iconic!”
“If I could change it right here and now, I would,” I growled.
“I can help with that when I’m all done here,” the judge offered. “Mrs. Cain, you are also ordered to pay back the insurance check, with interest. That’s a sum of four hundred and ten thousand dollars. May I ask, how did you manage to get that check instead of Mr. Cain?”
My mother stayed silent.
“If you don’t want to spend the night in jail, and have your mugshot shared all over social media, you’ll be answering,” the judge ordered.
“It was still in my name. I heard about the fire, and I called and changed our mailing address,” she muttered. “But it was in my name!”
“It wasn’t your house.” The judge shook his head in disgust. “Get out of my courtroom. And pay back what you owe, or you really will see the inside of a jail cell. Fraud’s illegal, and I’ll let your ass fry if you ever make it back into my courtroom for any reason.”
My mother got up with a flourish.
The moment she stomped out of the room, her lawyer close on her heels, the judge turned to me. “So, since we’re already here, what is your new name?”
I went with Holly Cantrell Cain.
I thought I was on top of the world when I walked out of that courtroom.
Turns out, I wasn’t near the top.
Until Denver Windsor kissed me.
TWENTY-ONE
Hey, quick question. Are you fucking kidding me?
—Denver to Boone
DENVER
I watched Holly from across the room.
Dressed in a tight pair of bootcut jeans that molded to that perfect ass so precisely that they looked like they were made for her. She had on a black t-shirt that said “Play Something Country” and a cowboy hat that I’d seen her wear a thousand times before.
But somehow, tonight, it was sexy as hell.
Even the dirt on the rim.
She was dancing and laughing with Creed’s wife, Birdie.
They were trying, and failing, to do a line dance to a Morgan Wallen song.
It was a slow one.
And both of them were drunk as skunks and less than coordinated.
It was damn near the cutest thing I’d ever seen.
“Your ex-wife is staring at you.”
I looked over to Weaver and said, “Who?”
Weaver grinned and jerked his chin away from where I was wanting to look and said, “Your ex-wife. She’s staring hard.”
I didn’t bother to look.
I quit caring about her when she walked out of my life.
Gentry walked by with a purpose, looking like he was about to do something bad.
I leaned forward, dropping my feet heavily to the wood floor from the barstool they’d been resting on, and stood.
I watched Gentry stalk across the bar heading toward, funny enough, my ex-wife.
He veered around her, though, and stopped a foot from the bar and roared, “Get your hands off my wife!”
Fuck.
Sage turned around, her hair swinging, and stared at the man that’d just bellowed in front of the entire bar and said, “I’m sorry, but who are you?”
The man who’d been touching Gentry’s wife let go immediately.
First, Gentry was still in uniform.
Second, everyone knew that Gentry was a Dixie Warden.
And, like I said, you didn’t mess with a Dixie Warden. Not in this town.
Sage hissed and walked forward, pushing Gentry in the chest.
Gentry clenched his hands around Sage’s waist, then dipped, tossed her over his shoulder, and walked straight out of the bar.
“Well then,” Juliana said. “That was interesting.”
I looked at Juliana. “Mind your own business.”
“I just find it funny,” Juliana said. “But he was never married when I was still a part of your life. Maybe I’ll have to look into it.”