Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Dillon married that woman once his divorce from Emery was final, and the co-parenting situation remained hostile for years. They seem to have gotten over that hump, though, according to my mother, to find a relatively civil balance. Emery hasn’t dated anyone since, choosing to immerse herself in work and her daughter.
Yes, I know every story beat of Emery McAllister’s life.
“She took over for her old man, huh?” The girl I grew up with was scrappy, her pale, red-tinged hair usually pulled back in a braid that frizzed in the summertime. She swung baseball bats and hung upside down from tree branches. She was smart, dependable, a rule follower.
She was my best friend.
And then she was more. I never saw it coming. I didn’t look at her that way, not until she returned from a summer away as a camp counselor looking less like the girl I’d thrown snowballs at and more like the ones I’d been chasing. Gone were the lanky limbs, the round cheeks, the childish pigtail braids. Now she had female curves and a natural beauty that I saw every time I closed my eyes at night. And she started dating fucking Dillon Sanders.
That’s when I smartened up and, lo and behold, she admitted her crush on me too. That last year of high school with her holds my best memories.
Until, on my eighteenth birthday, I made the worst mistake of my life.
“A bit young to be given that kind of responsibility if you ask me, but she’s managed all right, I suppose,” Dad cuts into my daydream. “For a female.”
“Toughest guard I ever had was female,” I counter. CO Ansell—a tiny woman who took her job more seriously than any male there. Her words were her first line of defense, and her tongue was sharper than the shiv an inmate drove through my ribs. She liked me because I never tried anything with her—no “sweetheart” or “darling”; I was never up her ass with compliments.
My dad grunts. “An interesting dynamic, having that ex of hers running the town and her running the law. But it’s never a bad thing for our family to be tight with the local police, especially now.”
Now that you’re out, he doesn’t have to say. What does Emery think about my return? Has she pinned my mugshot up on their bulletin board yet? Strategized ways to nail me for breaking rules so I’m sent back to finish the remaining years of my sentence? “Do people know I’m out?”
“I’m sure some do. Everyone’ll know soon enough. Impossible to keep much quiet these days, with all this social media nonsense.” He shakes his head. I sense him wanting to say something else, but the front door to our house eases open. Two collies that look much like the ones we had when I went away charge down the steps and race toward us with excited barks.
My throat tightens as my mother follows them, her hand gripping the rail, her quilted jacket haphazardly thrown on.
I could count the number of times on my hands that I’ve seen her over the years. At first it was because I refused visitors. It was too hard, and I was in a dark place. I convinced myself that cutting everyone off was the best thing I could do for them.
The first—and only—letter my father ever wrote to me was about three years into my sentence, to tell me that my mother was battling depression, and it was all my fault. She’d taken a turn for the worse, unable to get out of bed. Also my fault. He wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on like that and, if there was any shred of myself left, I’d pick up a damn pen and paper and answer her.
So I did.
And it saved me, even if that wasn’t his goal.
“She’s been waitin’ a long time for this day. Don’t you dare ruin it for her, or it’ll be the last thing you do, I swear to God,” my father warns, low enough for only me to hear.
I know I should close the distance so she doesn’t have to come so far, but I’m frozen, watching her speed toward me, the slightest hobble in her step as if her hip is giving her issues.
She’s out of breath when she arrives. “Logan,” she manages, reaching around my shoulders.
It’s the first hug I’ve received in two decades that isn’t closely monitored by a guard, and I stiffen instinctively.
But she only squeezes tighter. “You’re home now, and you’re not ever leaving me again, you hear?” she whispers hoarsely.
Something about her voice, familiar and yet different—aged and reedy—relaxes me instantly. I wrap my arms around her tiny frame, sinking into her as my previous numbness gives way to a torrent of emotion. After all I put her through, and all those years of letters I didn’t answer, of visits I denied, this woman didn’t give up on me.