Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
He was right.
But that also meant no one would look twice at me, either.
“Your dad works at the Skeeter place, right?” I asked. “Think he’ll want to keep his job?”
The kid’s eyes flashed. “Why?”
“Because I already told him what would happen if you stepped out of line,” I clarified. “Know a lot of people in this area. Happened to save the big boss’s kid from a burning car a couple of years ago.”
The kid’s eyes went wary.
“I think it’s time for y’all to move,” I suggested. “Maybe move somewhere less…busy.”
The kid crossed his arms over his chest. “I want y’all out of my town by the end of the month. If you’re not, you won’t like the consequences.”
The kid bared his teeth at me, but I turned around and gave him my back, showing him how little he intimidated me.
He must’ve thought to strike when my back was turned, because Webber stepped to the side and took the kid and his swinging arm with him.
He landed in the dirt, the thunk of his body hitting the fucked-up asphalt road so hard that he bounced several feet before coming to a stop.
Webber stepped on his good hand, and the crunch of bone was loud enough to be heard a block away.
Getting down onto his haunches beside the kid, he growled, “The Hodges and the Hicks are nothing to you. I don’t want to see you anywhere near them, or the Truth Tellers, ever again. Do you understand me?”
On the outside, Webber appeared to be a big teddy bear, but he was anything but.
He moved fast, was so fuckin’ smart that you never saw it coming, and reacted before logic would tell most people to.
In all, he was a big bear of a man that thought quick on his feet, and was so fuckin’ scary that I was intimidated myself to prospect for the club years ago.
He was still scary as hell, but at least his scary as hell was on my side.
“I’ll leave,” he blurted out. “I’m eighteen. Leave my dad alone, though.”
“Your dad goes, too,” he informed him. “All of you carrying your name, as well. I don’t want to be lookin’ over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”
“Y-yes, s-sir.” He swallowed hard.
Webber got up, stepped off his hand, and we walked the rest of the way down the road to our bikes.
As we drove home, we all split off at different exits.
When I got back to my place, it was to find Searcy at the door waiting for me in nothing but my t-shirt.
When I got up the porch steps and pulled her into my arms, she didn’t ask where I’d been.
She didn’t say a word but to ask how long I got to sleep before I was expected to get up.
And it was only then, once I’d admitted to myself and Scottie that I wouldn’t mind selling this place, that I finally admitted that it might be nice to sleep in for once.
Lazy Saturdays in bed with the woman that I was in love with seemed like a step closer to heaven.
Epilogue
Marriage: a fancy way of saying ‘I’ll put up with you forever.’
—Written note from Posy to Searcy
SEARCY
6 months later
The house we finally settled on building was fan-freakin’-tastic.
It was also going to take us a year to build it.
In the meantime, we were living in a triple-wide.
That’s right.
A triple-wide.
I hadn’t even known that they made triple-wide mobile homes, but there I was, living in one.
We’d put the triple-wide at the front of the hundred and six acres we’d bought—and we did buy it. With the sale of the cattle ranch, Scottie and Posy had brought in a million two and split it evenly.
With his half of the money, Posy bought the land, and I’d bought the mobile home.
We owned the property together, free and clear, officially, as of yesterday.
Today?
We were getting married in our pole barn.
I was dressed, and ready to be walked down the aisle by Kent, who was standing next to the front door waiting on me.
Calliope, dressed to the nines beside me, was fiddling with my hair.
Scottie was fixing my train, and Anders was standing in front of me with her iPad pulled up and Koda on the screen witnessing it all from halfway across the world.
“Are you ready?” Kent asked impatiently. “They’ve been out there waiting for forever.”
I grinned.
Kent had taken a liking to the Truth Tellers MC, and Posy in particular.
He loved Koda and all, but the Truth Tellers had become something he aspired to be one day.
He wasn’t too impressed with Koda’s inability to get home for something so important as his sister’s wedding, so he’d switched his life focus to other things.
Other, more dangerous things.
“I’m ready,” I stated firmly. “Okay, enough, enough. You two head out there.”
Calliope and Scottie hooked elbows and walked out, giggling.