I shake my head. “Just you.”
He goes a little pale. “So you sold me out, huh?”
“Ididn’t know you,” I shoot back.
“And knowing me changes this…how?”
“It changes everything.”
The words burst out, echoing through the room. His eyes widen in a quick flare, pupils retracting. There’s no way he’s going to lie and tell me the last few days meant nothing. Because after meeting him and all the things his touch made me feel, I’m never going to be the same woman.
Neither of us speak.
“How’d you know where to find me?” he asks finally.
“There’s a photograph in my purse,” I whisper. “Brothers gave it to me, along with a list of places I should check.”
He crosses the room, grabbing my purse and emptying it on the chair. The photograph falls out. He picks it up and goes completely still. His lips part as he stares at it, brow furrowed.
“Alright,” he says. He puts the gun back in his holster and shoves the photo in my pocket. “I’m gonna go have a fucking cigarette,”
He walks out, leaving me chained to the headboard. Pain, the worst kind, settles in like a cold front. It aches from my head to my feet.
More than anything in this world, I want my son back in my arms.
But now, I also want Jensen.
I fell so hard and fast, I didn’t realize I’m feeling things for him already, real, gut wrenching things that make me want to cry as he slams the front door.
I could have had this from the start. If Leland Caudill hadn’t seen me walk up to his table in the diner and decided he just had to have me because of some two dollar, secondhand dress that made my tits look good. If he hadn’t knocked me up and put a ring I never wanted on my finger, I’d have had the opportunity to meet a man like Jensen.
But no, Leland couldn’t keep his hands to himself. For the sin of being desired, I was damned. And now, my heart is ripped in two—one part back in Kentucky with my little boy, and one part sitting all torn up in my chest.
Bleeding out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JENSEN
It feels like that one time I got kicked in the chest by a mule when I was in middle school. It wasn’t even hard, but it was a mule, so of course, it knocked the bejesus out of me and sent me dry heaving over the edge of the fence.
Dazed, I step out onto the porch. The shadow of Sovereign Mountain hovers in the distance. Usually, it’s a comforting behemoth. Tonight, it feels like the encapsulation of the threat breathing down my neck.
The wind hits the door and sends it slamming shut. I reach in my pocket and pull out the box of cigarettes, taking the last one out.
Brothers Boyd.
That’s a name I’d hoped to never hear again in my life.
When I fled Kentucky, I took nothing but a horse and a revolver. I felt, at the very least, I deserved that much to take me onward. It was a silly dream, a child’s dream, to be a cowboy. But when the sensible parts of the world fell apart, it was all I had left.
It worked. For nineteen years, I was left alone.
But not in peace. Every day, I look over my shoulder and wonder if the Caudills or Brothers will find me here. If I could do it over again, I’d have changed my name, but I didn’t know enough then. I was akid, and all I knew to do was run as far as I could until I found a place to hide.
Nineteen years is a lot of hiding.
My shoulders sag. I bring the cigarette up and inhale. The label taunts me, half crushed and flashing the emblem I used to look over and see on Holly’s nightstand. Back then, I was too young to know better. Both Holly and Brothers got their pound of flesh before I came to my senses. I thought I’d gotten over that, but clearly, I haven’t, because I couldn’t let Della get on top of me like that.
