Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 147967 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147967 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Tank leaned into her leg and Big Berry stood on her other side. Flanking her, defending her.
She’d never felt so protected. She’d never had people stand up to Kathryn for her.
“This is my home. You all are here as interlopers and I will go where I like. I do not want those beasts in my house!”
“It was Maya’s house before it was your house,” Matthieu said. “And I believe this was actually her mother’s family home, was it not? So I would think it makes this house more her home than yours.”
Under other circumstances that might have sounded harsh, bordering on cruel. But Kathryn had done her best to ostracize Maya from her family home.
And she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Kathryn, sit down and leave Maya alone,” her father said, surprising her.
“She has a dog and pig with her. A pig should not be indoors!” Kathryn cried.
“We have other things to worry about right now,” her father snapped. “I just heard that you’ve put an APB out on Vince! Why? He cannot possibly have been the person who threw a fire bomb at my daughter’s house!”
She moved up next to Matthieu. He put an arm out to stop her going any further, but she hadn’t intended to.
Kathryn sat but still sent daggers at Maya with her eyes.
She really didn’t seem too alarmed by the fact that Vince had tried to kill her stepdaughter, did she?
“There’s no denying video footage as proof,” her brother said grimly. “I have it on my laptop.”
She hadn’t noticed that Marlin was even carrying a laptop. He set it up on the coffee table and her father sat down next to Kathryn as they watched it.
“This . . . this is insane!” Kathryn said. “Vince wouldn’t do this. Perhaps it’s someone that looks like him.”
“As far as I know, Vince doesn’t have a twin,” her brother said dryly.
Maya was watching her father. He seemed frozen, his gaze locked on the screen. If he was pretending to be shocked, then he was a very, very good actor.
“You need to get out there and find the real criminal,” Kathryn said. “Darling, get Robert and Malcolm onto it. They will get to the bottom of this.”
“I can assure you that we are working hard to find the actual perpetrator,” Detective Reeves said smoothly. “That person being Vince. Who, by the way, has disappeared.”
Her father stood at this, bumping into the coffee table and sending the laptop flying. Thankfully, it didn’t smash as it landed on the carpeted floor.
Her brother calmly picked it up without a word.
“I cannot believe it!” her father thundered as he started pacing again. “Why would Vince try to hurt Maya? That’s . . . that’s not even possible! Vince likes you. He wanted to date you, but for some reason you didn’t want that and made up that ridiculous story about him assaulting you.”
“It wasn’t something that she made up,” Matthieu told him in a dark voice. “That happened. It was real. And you didn’t believe her. You, the chief of police, ignored a claim from your daughter about sexual abuse. Why? Because he was a cop? Because he was one of your cops? Why would you believe him over her?”
Her breath caught in her lungs, her heart skipping a beat. And she knew in that moment that she could fall in love with this man. That she might nearly be doing that.
He cared for her babies as much as she did. Well, maybe not the chickens . . . but Princess Priss adored him. And he’d figured out a way to get through to Tank.
He protected her. Stood up for her. Supported her. Heck, she even liked the fact he gave her some rules, but wasn’t a dick about it. He was generally calm and caring. Feeding her, driving her around, putting up with the fact that most of the time she struggled to look him in the face.
Yeah, she could love this man.
She might already.
Which was a scary thought since after this was over, she might never see him again.
Kathryn sighed with a fake-patient and somewhat condescending look on her face. “It’s obvious that you don’t know Maya well. She’s very sweet, but she’s also known for making up wild stories and exaggerating things. She doesn’t mean to upset anyone. It’s just her way of getting attention. It’s quite sad, really. I know it started after she lost her mother and I tried to give her all the attention she needed. But nothing ever seemed to work.” Kathryn gave a sad sniff.
Wow. She really should have pursued an acting career.
Her father put his arm around her. “It wasn’t your fault, dear. Maya is my daughter. I should have gotten her into therapy after Maggie’s death. But I was too caught up in my own grief.”
“Yes, so caught up that you moved Kathryn in less than a year after Mom died,” Maya spat out.