AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, my God,” I breathed, suddenly overwhelmed. I’d put my burdens down for a minute, and picking them back up again felt like it was too much. Like I couldn’t do it.
And all I wanted in that moment was to see Clayton again. To have his help, if not with the load of my sisters, then at least to comfort me in the carrying of it.
Yeah, the King sisters were in some kind of trouble.
“I need to go call her,” I said, and pulled Bea with me back toward the house.
“Okay,” she said. “But then you know what we need to do?”
I didn’t want to, but I knew exactly what she was thinking.
“Go see who is living on that property.”
19
VERONICA
“Where are we?” Bea asked from the passenger seat of my car.
“You’re the one with the map!” I cried. Way out here at the west end of the property, it was all oil rigs and dirt roads. It was impossible not to get lost.
“It’s hardly a map. It’s a freaking Google Earth picture,” she muttered, flipping the picture a quarter turn. Which, frankly, did not instil any confidence.
“You know something?” I lifted my foot off the gas. “I shouldn’t have let you talk me into this.”
“Left!” Bea cried. “Turn left.”
“This is a mistake.”
“No. I know where we are. Turn left. The river is right over the hill.”
“Why didn’t we know this cabin was here?”
“Because we didn’t care? Because The King’s Land is made up of a billion acres?”
“Fair.”
I turned left and we climbed a small hill, and sure enough, over that hill was the river, a blue ribbon cutting through the brown earth. And there at the bend was a small cabin with a big covered porch facing the river.
“There!” Bea cried.
“I see it,” I said, but instead of stepping on the gas, I braked. Seeing the house made this all very real. “Bea,” I said. “This doesn’t feel good.”
“Are you joking?” she asked. “You’re considering marrying the guy who kept a gigantic secret from you in the past and you feel bad finding out what this secret is?”
“It feels like I’m invading his privacy.”
“Funny, it feels to me like you’re protecting yourself.” Bea turned in her seat so she could face me. “And that’s usually your thing, you know? Women protecting themselves. Taking care of themselves—”
“I know, I know,” I said, and then, because I couldn’t look at my fierce fuck-up of a sister and say these words out loud, I closed my eyes. “But I don’t want him to be lying to me.”
“Oh, Ronnie,” Bea breathed. “I get it. I do. But you have to find out now. You know you do.”
“I could ask him.”
“You could. Or you could drive three hundred feet and find out for yourself.”
“You’re right.” She was. She was one hundred percent right. I took my foot off the brake and off we went. Down the hill toward the cottage by the river. “Did I tell you he hasn’t been with anyone in five years?”
“What? Like, dated anyone?”
“No. Like, sex.”
“That’s…fucked up.”
“I haven’t, either,” I said.
“Yeah, and that’s fucked up, too.”
“I thought it was kind of sweet.”
“Not if it’s a lie.”
I glanced over at her and it occurred to me that maybe this wasn’t entirely about Clayton. But maybe a little bit about Frank.
“I don’t think he’s lying.”
I could feel Bea looking at me. “Because you still love him,” she said, like it all made sense to her now. “And you think the fact he hasn’t banged anyone else means he loves you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’re thinking it. I can tell.” Bea was disappointed in me, but that’s nothing new. And I could throw a lot of stones at her relationships, but what would be the point?
We were in front of the cabin, and both of us stared up at the pretty porch and the closed front door. “Let’s go,” Bea said and opened her door, but I grabbed her wrist. And then I let her go, because the truth was that in the last five years women protecting themselves had been my soapbox, and being scared was no reason not to be smart.
I popped open my door just as the front door of the cabin opened and a pretty young woman wearing nurse’s scrubs stepped out onto the porch. The wind pushed her long black curls across her face and she reached up to hold them back.
“Ho. Ly. Shit,” Bea said. “She’s beautiful.”
She was. She was beautiful. And young. And I could practically feel Bea jumping to all kinds of conclusions.
A kid dashed out the door after her and the woman reached down and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from running off the porch.
“This can’t be happening.” I gasped. I’d asked him, hadn’t I? He’d promised. “This can’t be what it looks like.”
