Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
He slowly shook his head, jaw set, eyes red. “What have you done?” he whispered.
I sobbed. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
Matt swallowed hard as the muscles in his face twitched; his whole body shook. “Virgin to a whore.”
I winced, turning my head like he’d slapped me.
“Matty,” Isaac grabbed his neck, and Matt clawed at his hand.
“Isaac!” I yelled.
He ignored me as he walked Matt backward toward the door. “You don’t get to talk to her that way. I won’t allow it. Not today. Not ever. I love you, but I love her more. You and everyone else are done sucking the life out of her. You’re done taking. Your privileges have been revoked. So go back to the house. Be the coddled child you’ve always been because you don’t deserve someone you don’t really see. Are we clear?” He released him.
Matt gasped, rubbing his throat. When he looked at me, I averted my gaze to the ground.
“When he knocks you up and leaves you for six years, and your parents kick you out, don’t come crying to me,” Matt said through gritted teeth before slamming the barn door behind him.
I continued to stare at the floor.
Numb.
Dazed.
“Look at me,” Isaac said.
I didn’t move.
“Look. At. Me.”
With a shaky inhale, I peered up at him just as he pulled his shirt over his head. Then he took my bra and T-shirt and proceeded to dress me.
“I’ll make my father buy me out. We’ll pack up and go to Nashville, or anywhere you want to go.”
I furrowed my brow. “What are you talking about? Buy you out of what?”
“The ranch.” He closed the tack room and tucked his hands into his back pockets while facing me. “My dad did something. I helped him out. And in return, he gave me fifty percent of the land.”
Fifty percent of the Corys’ ranch added up to more than a fourth of the land in and around Devil’s Head.
Brenda.
Isaac knew about Brenda, and Wesley gave him half the farm to keep his mouth shut.
“What did he do?” I asked.
“I can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
He shook his head. “Can’t.”
I frowned. “I already know. But I don’t want to do this now. I need to figure out where to rinse off so I can get dressed for the funeral.”
“I don’t know what you think you know, but you’re way off,” he said.
“I’m not. But it doesn’t matter. I have to go.”
“It does matter,” Isaac said as I brushed past him toward the door.
He grabbed my arm. “Sarah, whatever you think you know, you—”
“I know about the affair.”
Isaac’s grip on my arm tightened for a few seconds until I tugged it away from his hold. When I glanced back at him, his tan face began to lose its color.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “But I’m tired of the secrets. They’re destroying everyone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
AEROSMITH, “DREAM ON”
Isaac
She knocked me on my ass.
I couldn’t believe it. How did she know? And if she knew, who else knew?
When I entered the machine shed, Dad was sitting on an overturned bucket. He looked up at me and quickly wiped his eyes with his fists. I couldn’t imagine why he was crying.
“What do you need?” he asked, clearing his throat and standing to busy himself with the equipment.
“Sarah Jacobson knows. How the hell does she know?”
“Knows what?”
“Don’t be such an old, stupid fucker. You know damn well what I’m talking about.”
“I know what you think she knows, but it’s not that.”
“Keep telling yourself that, but she said she knows about the affair. And you’re running out of land to silence people. And I don’t think you can bribe her. She’s better than you. And she’s better than me.”
With his back to me, he rested a hand on his hip and set his gaze on the ceiling. “You ever been in love?”
“Don’t give me this. You didn’t love Danielle Harvey.”
“No, but your mom loved Clyde Jensen.”
I squinted. “Who’s Clyde Jensen?”
“The man your mother was engaged to when I met her.”
“You said a mutual friend fixed you up.”
“That’s true. Your mom and Clyde had a big fight. And she decided to teach him a lesson by going on a date with me. Of course, I didn’t know that, so I held nothing back. I liked her from the moment we were introduced. She tucked her chin and curled her hair behind her ear as she blushed when I told her how beautiful her eyes were.”
I loved a girl with beautiful eyes.
He turned toward me. “She had every intention of going back to him, but after that night, I made her realize that she needed to rethink things. We were married a year later, and nine months later, you were born.”
“What does this have to do with Danielle Harvey?”
“Five years later, Clyde contacted your mom. He was in St. Louis for the weekend, and he wanted to see your mom. Of course, I said no. And that prompted an argument over my not trusting her, so she went to St. Louis, leaving me to take care of you. The timing was awful because we’d been fighting. Not that it was an excuse, but it just …” He shook his head. “The timing was awful for us.”