Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 133878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Somewhere out there his brother was fixing fences and probably still thinking Shane was a moron who didn’t know what he saw. Or heard.
Shane watched the acres fly by as Max started toward the town. “Rachel seemed sad, but I think she was comfortable. I think she’s just… I don’t know. I don’t have a lot of experience with moms. I think she loves her kids and she loves you, but she’s overwhelmed.”
He was a bit overwhelmed, too. Last night when Bay had made his statement of intent, Shane had frozen. It had come to such crystal clarity. Bay could find a way to fit with Brooke’s world. Eccentric, renowned artist was kind of the dream for a woman like Brooke.
“Well, that’s what happens when you think you’re finally done with kids and suddenly your asshole husband gets you pregnant again.” Max stared out, too. The man seemed different this morning. More serious. Like sleeping without his wife in bed had made him more solemn. “I fixed it, though. At least I hope I did. I have to go back in a week and make sure none of my swimmers survived. Gotta make sure Doc drowned them real good. You using a condom when you fuck my sister?”
“You could push me out here,” Shane offered. It looked like there were some soft places to land. If he waited until they were closer to town, he could push him over an edge and into a chasm.
Like what they planned to do to him and Bay in Wyoming. You know it would serve Bay fucking right to find his murdered body in a ditch somewhere. See if that asshole could get along without him.
“Been pushed out of a lot of moving vehicles, have you?” Max asked.
“Just the one.” Shane wasn’t going to play scared around Max Harper. He either would try to hurt him or he wouldn’t. He rather thought this whole trip was about telling Shane how he wasn’t worthy of Brooke.
He wasn’t traditionally educated.
He didn’t have a family to offer her.
He had a job that didn’t pay much and was often transitory.
His brother thought he was a liar.
“Who the hell pushed you out of a car?” Max sounded shocked for once.
He hadn’t thought anything could shock Max Harper. Well, he would probably laugh. “Let’s just say the supposed maternal figure in my life did not want to take me to a family wedding but my cousin insisted, so she accidently took a curve too fast on the golf cart she used to take people around to look at apartments. She was a property manager for the complex we lived at for a couple of years. This was after my dad lost all our money gambling. They had to sell the house her parents left them and my grandfather’s ranch. To say she was unhappy would be an understatement. Naturally she blamed me. She then tried to sue the complex saying the seatbelt was faulty, but she told me not to wear it. So it was a win win for her. I broke my arm, and she didn’t have to explain my presence at the wedding. I stayed home alone. I was nine. They were gone for three days. They left food for the dog at least.”
Max’s hands eased, and he slowed the truck to the normal speed limit. “Your own momma did that to you and Bay?”
He didn’t know? He wasn’t surprised. Everyone thought they were fraternal twins. “She was my stepmother. My mom had an affair with her husband and while she tried her hardest to prove I wasn’t his, DNA didn’t lie. When my momma left me on her doorstep, she decided I would make a fine whipping boy.”
“I thought you and…”
It was what most people thought. “We’re a couple of months apart, though I don’t remember a lot before I went to live with Bay’s family. She hated me but she couldn’t let me go into the system because that would make her look bad. The good news was she also couldn’t starve me because that made her look bad, too. She wouldn’t let me eat at the dinner table with her family. I learned how to make simple food when I was young because if I didn’t, she would give me a couple of pieces of bread and that would be dinner. Going to school did me a world of good because there were suddenly eyes on me wondering why I weighed half what my brother weighed.”
“Holy shit. I thought I had a bad parent.”
Just because his stepmom had been worse didn’t mean Max hadn’t had it bad. And it was obvious the Harper boys had taken a bad situation and made it work. “You did. He left you. Your mother died and while you were mourning her, he left you alone to raise a young girl. He was a shitty parent, Max. You were a good one.”