Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“About two hours. The paramedics said you might have a concussion, but the CT scan came back clear.” His hand found mine, fingers intertwining gently. “Heather, what happened out there? The police said you hit that pole going nearly fifty in a residential zone.”
The lie came automatically, self-preservation kicking in before I could think. “I thought… I think I… I… I saw a kid… a little girl… run into the street. I swerved and lost control.” I looked up at him with what I hoped were appropriately frightened eyes. “I’m so sorry about the car, Ryan. I know we can’t afford—”
“Forget the car.” His voice was firmer than I expected, cutting through my practiced apology. “Cars can be replaced. You can’t.”
But there was something different in his tone, something that made my stomach flutter with the same mixture of distressing arousal and unease I’d felt the night before. His thumb traced over my knuckles, and I became suddenly, acutely aware that I was still wearing the training underwear beneath the thin hospital gown someone had replaced my probably ruined dress with. The accident hadn’t changed that humiliating fact.
“The thing is,” he continued, his voice dropping lower, “I spoke with someone from the New Modesty Authority while you were unconscious. They have a counselor here, Mrs. Chen. She asked me some questions about… about how things have been at home.”
My heart began to race. “What kind of questions?”
“About whether you’ve been struggling with your responsibilities. About whether I’ve been providing adequate guidance.” His eyes met mine directly now, and I saw something there I’d never seen before—a quiet resolution that made my breath catch. “I told her the truth, Heather. About the housework, about how I’ve been too gentle with you, about how we both know you need more structure than I’ve been giving you.”
“Ryan—”
“She made some recommendations. We’re going to discuss them when we get home, after the doctor clears you for discharge.” He squeezed my hand, but it felt less like comfort and more like a promise.
“But…” I protested, my heart starting to beat wildly. “It was… it was totally an accident. It didn’t have anything to do with… that stuff.”
Something in Ryan’s face told me I wasn’t standing on firm ground with my lie—that he suspected I might be trying to get out of responsibility for totaling the car. I swallowed hard.
“We’ll talk about it when we get home,” he said.
“But…” I felt much too much happening in my mind, my heart, and my body even to begin to find words for it—even if I wanted to find words for it, of which I felt by no means sure. Worse, Ryan’s eyes now definitely seemed to have a warning in them. “But…” I repeated, “what are you… I mean… what are you going to do?”
I watched my gorgeous husband take a deep breath through his nose, as if he were trying to keep something in check—some scary, aggressive part of him that I had scarcely ever glimpsed before except maybe when I had watched him play basketball with his friends.
“Babe,” he said slowly. “What did I say?”
I swallowed again.
“That we’d talk about it when we get home,” I said meekly, not enjoying at all how the sound of my own soft voice stirred happiness and anger in me simultaneously.
On the way home, clad in sweats Ryan had bought me at the big box store next to the hospital, at first I tried not to think about how I had ended up here. Unfortunately, that made me think about what would happen when we got home, an even less inviting prospect. My mind sought refuge in the past after all—in the stuff I had never been able to tell Ryan.
The dirty, shameful stuff that had led me to the Midwestern town of Scipio, and to Ryan Montgomery, the man who had offered me another chance. Who had said the past didn’t matter, when I had tried to confess to him everything Chad had done to me, and made me do, in the year between my eighteenth and nineteenth birthdays.
Chad. Even thinking his name made my stomach twist with a mixture of shame and unwanted arousal. I stared out the passenger window as Ryan drove us home, trying to push down the memories that always seemed to surface when I felt most vulnerable.
I’d been so young when I met him—barely eighteen, fresh out of high school and working at the mall food court. He’d been twenty-four, confident in a way that made my knees weak. The way he’d looked at me across the pretzel counter, like he could see right through my clothes, had made me feel powerful and terrified at the same time.
“You’re too pretty to be working in a place like this,” he’d said, leaning against the counter with that crooked smile that had made my heart race. “Let me take you somewhere nice.”