Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“But…” I started to say, but the guard held up his hand.
“Just go,” he ordered.
I was confused.
I’d studied all the rules on the website for hours last night, just as I had the previous couple of times I’d tried to come.
I knew for a fact that to get into an extended visit family room, the prisoner was being rewarded for something, and I couldn’t figure out what Ridley, aka Connor, was doing getting rewarded for something already.
From our texting back and forth, I knew he wasn’t being a ‘model’ anything.
From what I’d been able to gather from his very cryptic messages, he’d had to fight constantly. He’d not only been having to prove himself, but he’d also been trying to get his foot into the door with a man who he’d refused to tell me about.
Which was why the information I’d been able to get from my cop friends as well as Corey’s friends had to be true.
He hadn’t told me exactly why he was in there.
All I knew was that he was undercover.
“Okay,” I said softly, turning my back on the guard.
I began to weave my way in and out of the tables, surprised to see so many women there.
Sure, I’d known that there would be a lot here seeing as this was an all-male prison, but where were all the fathers and brothers?
My mind was whirling and my stomach was tied in knots as I passed all the tables.
It was when I was at the very last table, the one closest to my destination, when I was stopped by a very angry woman.
“I was supposed to be able to have a family room tonight,” she hissed, getting up and putting her finger into my face.
I stepped back out of reaction.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t ask for one.”
I tried not to look at the woman’s shirt, but reluctantly my eyes were pulled down to the leather vest that covered her body.
In the reflective glass of the family room, I saw that the letters on the back of the vest declared her as ‘Donnie’s Property.’
My eyes went back to her face, and I took in all the lines and wrinkles, then further down to the pointy red, badly in need of a new nail job, finger that was pointing at my face still.
“I don’t really care if you did or not,” she hissed. “You’re going to pay. I’ve been on the waiting list for that room for months.”
I started to sidestep, trying to get out of her way, and she followed me.
Dammit.
I was not a fighter.
In fact, I was a runner.
And if I couldn’t run, I was a curl up into a ball and hope for the best kind of girl.
It drove my brother nuts, but it wasn’t a reaction I could really fix.
It was just that, a reaction.
I was saved from having that reaction, though, by the very man I was going to see.
“Let her through,” Ridley ordered.
I swallowed and looked up, my eyes widening when I saw him.
He wasn’t clean shaven like he had been the last time I’d seen him.
Even in my yard, as he’d helped me with my Christmas lights, he had, at least, a five o’clock shadow.
Now it was a full blown manly, lumberjack type of beard.
And he had a tattoo.
On his hand.
Of a skull.
Was that a prison tattoo?
Holy cow.
Even in orange he was gorgeous.
He’d been hot before, but now…oh man, he was just…devastating.
Those beautiful brown eyes of his seemed to soak up energy from everything surrounding them, and in the fluorescent light of the room we were in, they looked almost the color of warm beer.
But with that color, I could also see a look of fury boiling beneath the depths.
Oh yes, he was pissed.
“Excuse me,” I whispered to the woman.
The woman continued to glare at me, but she didn’t stop me from skirting her and heading in Ridley’s direction.
The guard that’d been escorting Ridley moved, blocking my back from the woman’s piercing eyes, and gestured to the room again.
“In there,” he said, pointing.
I followed Ridley, who’d already started walking into the room without another glance in my direction.
I found that I was somewhat happy about that fact.
It gave me the chance to study him without that unnerving gaze of his making me do and say things that I wouldn’t normally say or do.
He looked bigger than he had four weeks ago. Scarier, too.
Maybe it was the inmate orange.
Or possibly the new look.
I don’t know what it was about him, but my heart started to race the closer I got to him.
“Later, Walker,” the guard said from behind me.
I blinked, turning to see him closing the door to the room, leaving me alone with Ridley.
I was suddenly extremely nervous.
So nervous that I was scared to look back at him.
“You can’t come visit me anymore,” he started. “I can’t be seen with you, and you can’t be seen with me.”