Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“Hey!”
“Shh. You’re going to scare the horses.” I smack her ass.
She fights for all of two seconds before her body goes limp. I love her surrender.
I cut her back.
I held a knife to her throat.
I threatened to kill her.
Yet … she gives me everything. Why, Scarlet? I will never fully understand how you do it.
Her hands tug at the back of my shirt, inching it up until I feel the warmth of her lips on my skin. Ambling to the truck with the best part of this world hanging over my shoulder, I close my eyes for a few breaths. Can a hundred and fifteen pounds of sexy, sass, and stubbornness save me? I swear to God … I think it’s possible, and I have no idea what to do with that possibility.
I unlock the truck and ease her from my shoulder, setting her in the seat. She grabs my shirt and pulls me to her lips. There’s no one more undeserving of this moment than I am. Scarlet likes the idea of Karma. Not me. Karma would never give this woman to me. It will be fine with me if Karma dies in a cosmic accident before my name comes up on her Scores to Settle List.
Pulling back, I try to hide the fucking fear that’s eating me up inside. The moment I surrendered to her was a drop-all-weapons-raise-the-white-flag moment that’s left me scared shitless—completely vulnerable. “I’m—” I can’t even speak past the fear. It’s a living thing pulsing in my throat.
Her hands press to my cheeks. “You’re forgiven.”
I don’t deserve her.
“But not forgotten,” I whisper. She’ll never forget what I did. It’s not humanly possible. Sometimes I want the impossible.
Her expression doesn’t change. “My head is undiscriminating with the memories it keeps, but my heart has already forgotten.”
I don’t want to move. Hell, I don’t want to blink. I think if I could stay lost in her long enough, I could let go of everything and my past would truly not matter.
“Let’s go.” I bite her bottom lip, tugging at it until she laughs.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” I grin and shut her door.
*
Scarlet
“Where are we?” I look around at the tall, tangled trees and overgrowth of weeds hiding the gray-sided two-story house.
“This is where I grew up.” He turns off the truck and stares out the window as if he’s waiting for something. Courage?
“Who lives here now?”
“No one.”
“Who owns it?”
“I do.” He frowns, eyes still trained straight ahead.
“Are you trying to sell it?”
Theo shakes his head and then gets out. I follow him as he plods through the tall grass that’s overtaken the brick walk to the front porch.
“Siblings?”
He shakes his head.
“How old were you when you moved here?”
“I lived here my whole life until I moved into an apartment my first year of college.” Resting his boot on the first porch step, he shifts his weight forward like he’s testing it. The white paint has weathered leaving rotting planks with cracks and holes. It creeks when he steps up.
“When was the last time you were here?”
Gripping the column at the top of the porch, Theo releases a sigh. “The day I found my father’s body.” He lowers his head while his knuckles turn white with his tightening grip on the column. “His face was unrecognizable,” he whispers.
The bottom step creaks again as I step onto it.
Theo turns and holds out his hand. “Here. Careful. The place was in need of renovation before they died. The years since haven’t done it any favors.”
We test each of our steps until we reach the door. Theo fishes his keys from his pocket and unlocks the front door. It, too, whines as he eases it open.
“Oh, wow.” The inside of the house doesn’t match the outside at all. The dark wood floors have a layer of dust blanketing them, but it’s easy to see that beneath the dust, they are flawless. The elaborate trim work of the stairway bannister, crown molding, and built-in bookshelves in the study to our left all scream Theodore Reed.
“My father and I were in the process of remodeling the whole house when …”
I nod. “Is that how you learned to do this? Your father?”
“Yeah.” He takes my hand and leads me up the solid stairs, not one single creak. Theo wraps his hand around the doorknob on the right but his gaze drifts to the closed door at the end of the ginger-painted hallway adorned with black frames—the Reed family story in pictures.
I imagine that story ended in tragedy in that room at the end of the hall.
“Is this your room?”
His head jerks back to the door before us, back to the present. “Yes.” He opens it.
With one step, my mind is blown by what I see. This isn’t a lie. This is real. This is Theodore Reed.