Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
I’ve always been the caretaker, but so often, when you take on that role, no one takes care of you.
And God, no matter how hard it is to admit this, I desperately want someone to take care of me.
I want someone to comfort me in times of trial and champion my wins. Someone to wade through the mud with me, no matter the depth.
I know this thing with Tad started out as casual, but when I wasn’t looking, hope edged in. Longing and dreaming and daring to think, maybe, I wouldn’t always have to do it alone.
His reaction is valid. Hell, I’m shocked by the way Eileen just plastered the news everywhere, and I’m already in the know.
And yet…it still stings.
“I can’t believe you fucking did this!” Josie shouts at the top of her lungs. “You had no right, Eileen! You had no fucking right!”
“Fu-ck!” Autumn yells in unison, but this time, Norah doesn’t even correct her. Sometimes the f-word is all that’s appropriate in a tense moment like this.
“This was my news to tell!” Josie hollers, and Clay wraps his arm around her shoulders.
Josie’s pregnant too? If I weren’t so wrapped up in my own pregnancy and Tad’s subsequent outright shocked reaction that’s currently taking place across this coffee shop, I’d probably be wondering why she didn’t tell me. Or how she managed to get pregnant in the first place. For the longest time, I was one of the only people who knew about the tragic accident that turned her world on its head.
“It’s okay, Josie,” Clay reassures, squeezing Josie tightly to his side.
Eileen stands there, a mix of delight and outright fear residing in the crow’s-feet of her eyes. I think there’s a part of her that’s flying high on cloud nine for breaking the bombshells of news that are quite literally true for once in her sleazy journalistic life. But there’s also another part that’s scared shitless as the rage-filled eyes of Josie Harris stare through her soul.
“No. It’s not okay!” Josie shakes her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m pregnant and emotional, and the only thing that will make me feel better is if I get to kill Eileen!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sheriff Peeler bellows, heading into the fray to stop a homicide. “Let’s everyone calm down.”
All I can do is look back at Tad. His eyes are as wide as Josie’s big coffee mugs, flitting between me and the newspaper clenched tightly in his hands. He gulps once, and then three more times after that.
A cacophony of screams breaks the sound barrier as Josie gets more riled up, and Clay and Bennett join in, shouting at Eileen for her gross invasion of privacy, all the while Sheriff Peeler does his best to make sure their altercation doesn’t end in bloodshed.
Norah tries to shelter the newly arrived Lillian from the sharp word bullets being tossed in the air with a quick hello hug, and Autumn clings to her shirt while simultaneously repeating the word fuck every time someone shouts it.
But it’s all basically background noise as I keep my eyes locked on Tad.
His feet are the first things to move, the rest of his body seemingly in limbo or purgatory—or hell, I suppose—skittering and scampering until they get traction out the door. It falls closed behind him as I watch on in horror as he jogs to his truck and jumps in, peeling out of the spot at the curb and taking off down Main Street at double the speed limit.
When I turn back to reality, my heart in my throat and chaos still living and breathing inside Josie’s coffee shop, Logan’s gaze finds mine. There’s a softness in his face that’s been missing for fifteen years or more, and I know with horrifying reality its root cause is pity. For me.
I can practically smell tomorrow’s headline now.
Poor Beatrice Bishop: Upon pregnancy announcement in paper, Farm Daddy flees town for good.
Boy, that silly nickname didn’t age well, did it?
37
Tad
Breezy’s pregnant.
Breezy’s. Pregnant.
Breezy’s pregnant.
Knuckles white and mottled, I grip the wheel and try to focus on the road as I tear out of town past the water tower toward Molene. Thoughts move faster than my wheels, and repeated chills run up and down my spine.
Sweat dots my forehead and drips from my lip as I try to find a way to calm down, but the onslaught of memories is too much, too fast, all at once.
The first day of spring break plans.
The eggs on the stove.
The smell of coffee in the pot as I left for my forty-eight-hour shift.
Veering recklessly off the road and into the heavy, snow-caked dirt on the side of it, I slam on the brakes and skid to a stop, my breathing labored.
Salty tears tinge my previously dry throat.
“I wasn’t supposed to do this again,” I murmur.