Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
At eighteen and nineteen, Rose and I had a harsh reality check.
We hadn’t had the money to pay for our college. We hadn’t had the money to pay for the estate’s taxes. We hadn’t had the money to pay off all the debtors.
We’d been metaphorically fucked.
But we’d persevered.
We’d both gone off to college, accruing more student loan debt than we should’ve, and graduated with our bachelor’s degrees in nursing.
Though, only Rose went into nursing full-time.
I’d continued to take advanced college courses while simultaneously playing professional soccer. I’d also worked part-time, and I’d lived in my big sister’s apartment with her.
At least, until she met Cain.
The moment they’d started seeing each other, I’d moved out.
I’d gotten an apartment with a teammate and left my sister to Cain.
I should’ve never left my sister to Cain.
Maybe if I’d thrown a fit, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.
“No arguments,” Rose said. “You had that offer a week ago. I’ll bet it’s still good.”
I was already shaking my head. “Rose…”
“Go,” she ordered. “Take Iris with you. And don’t ever come back.”
“Won’t he think it’s suspicious that I’m not here anymore?” I tried.
“No.” She stepped back from the stroller, a look of determination on her face. “He told me a week ago when I made mention of you moving to Texas that it was a good thing that you were leaving. That you were a bad influence on me, and that he was tired of wondering what we were plotting together. He gave me an ultimatum. Him or you.”
I closed my eyes as I felt tears well in my eyes. “This is the worst idea ever.”
My sister smiled, and it was the saddest smile I’d ever seen. “It’s for the best.”
I hugged her fiercely. “We’ll find a way out for you, Rose.”
She squeezed me so hard that I was breathless when she finally let me go. “We will.”
Except, we didn’t.
I moved to stupid Texas for a soccer career and the promise of daycare and free tuition for the rest of my nurse anesthetist degree.
Four months after I moved, Cain called me to tell me that my sister was dead.
Apparently, she had found a way out of her life after all.
One that came at the bottom of a pill bottle.
The sad fact was, I didn’t blame her at all.
And when the letter came in the mail two days later, explaining her reasoning, I knew that no matter what I did, I’d see that Cain McDuff paid.
I didn’t care if it took me twenty years to do it.
One day, I’d slide a knife between his ribs and smile as I watched the life bleed out of him.
ONE
Libraries were a good start, but we need more places where people can’t talk.
—Magnolia’s secret thoughts
MAGNOLIA
“How do you go about getting away with murder?”
“I think you should probably refrain from that,” a sexy, amused voice said from behind me.
I turned slowly, a little bit wobbly on my feet due to the workout I’d just punished myself with, and said, “And how would you know?”
The man, tall and burly, crossed his arms over his chest.
I admired the way his biceps flexed inside his red and white flannel shirt.
This guy was big, sure. But not too big. Tall, around six-foot-three in height, he had golden-brown hair, somewhere in between dirty blonde and brown. He had a reddish-brown beard covering the lower half of his face, and it looked like it needed to be trimmed weeks ago.
He also had really hairy forearms, which I found incredibly attractive.
I didn’t know what it was about hairy men that did it for me, but this man? He was my dream man.
He was the type of man I always wanted authors to describe their lead heroes as in my favorite romance novels.
They were always too well-kempt.
Just a little too “pretty” in my opinion.
Give me a big, hairy guy any day.
“Because I’m good friends with a couple of cops.” He jerked his chin toward two men who were, indeed, dressed in sheriff’s department uniforms.
They were also riding motorcycles and drinking beer.
Was that even allowed?
Speaking of motorcycles, the man who’d been talking to me for the last thirty seconds picked up a leather vest from his own motorcycle and threw it over his shoulders, threading those sexy arms into the holes.
My eyes settled on the vest—or cut, I guess you could call it thanks to watching seven seasons of Sons of Anarchy—and glazed over. He really knew how to fill out leather.
The name on the man’s “cut” read “Beau.”
I wondered if Beau was short for anything, or if it was just that simple.
Probably that simple.
This man looked like a Beau.
“Are you sure?” I asked as I kicked a tire. “Because, and I’m being really nice here, this man just put these tires on. I drove like half a mile down the road, and now my car is fucked up.”