AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah, I get that from talking to them.”
“Hey, I didn’t see your name in Vegas. I saw it on the JSE,” Carter says.
I blink, trying to follow what he’s talking about. “Uh…”
“Oh, that’s right, you’re new. The Juniper Springs Express.”
“That freaking thing,” Quinn mutters.
Avery is all of a sudden herding my kids off to the books and paraphernalia. Meanwhile, Carter is scrolling through something on his phone. “There you are!”
He shows me the screen. It’s an app, but has the feel of an old time message board.
Report on Mason’s guest: Liv Edwards, and she did not spend the night.
My face heats. “What the hell?”
“I didn’t want to tell you since the report actually got it right.”
I turn and look at Avery. “But you saw this.”
“It’s better than what I saw earlier,” Carter says, pulling the phone from my grasp and scrolling again. “Right here, they just talk about a mystery woman.”
I give Avery the mom look that immediately tells my kids they know they have pushed the limits of my patience. Avery knows it well.
“Sorry. I was going to tell you when you got home, but they just updated it, so that’s good.”
The bell over the door rings, heralding more customers. I grab my sister by the elbow and tug her off the side so I can interrogate her. “Explain.”
“I told you about it before. It’s actually better than some of the things they post on there. We would have never gotten away with half the stuff we did as kids if our town had something like this.”
“You meanyouwouldn’t have.”
“And Cora. She was kind of a hellraiser. And Fritz. Although guys seem to get away with all kinds of things—”
“Stop trying to distract me. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it isn’t important.”
She doesn’t understand, but then, none of my family ever did. As a child, I hated to have any attention thrown my way. Then, it was worse after Sam died. Then everyone looked at me with pity.
“It is to me.”
She sighs. “Liv, I would take it as a good thing.”
“How can you say that it’s a good thing?”
“You are already being treated as one of them. They accept you right off the bat.”
I want to dismiss her comments, but there is something close to longing in her voice. And while I still want to snatch her baldheaded for not telling me, my worry about her overrides my irritation. “Avery, you would tell me if you needed something from me, right?”
“Yes. And Iamgetting stuff from you because you are letting me spend time with the kids.”
That melts my agitation. It’s hard to stay mad at Avery because she loves my kids so much.
“Okay. If that changes, let me know.”
She nods. “Gonna go check on the kids.”
