Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
She wanted the parents who didn’t divorce when she was a kid and make her life a living nightmare. She wanted the sisters who actually liked her. She wanted to live in a town where everyone loved her and didn’t have a single bad thing to say about her.
That was not the life Birdee was given.
She had the exact opposite life. The kind of life where she slunk through the grocery store with a hoodie on so no one would recognize her. The kind of life where men like Creed Daugherty didn’t give her a second look.
After years of abuse and heartache, she built walls. Big, huge, thick ones that no one could ever breach. If she didn’t put forth the effort to get to know someone, she couldn’t be hurt.
At least, that was the theory.
She never counted on Creed Daugherty hitting her with his truck. Then, deciding that once he entered her life, he would never leave it.
Though Birdee should’ve known that Creed was too good to be true.
All it takes is one mistake on her part, and Creed freezes her out. Then forces the rest of the town to make it almost impossible for her to live in Sawtooth, Montana, anymore.
Birdee only thought it couldn’t get worse.
But Creed makes sure to show her that it can and will.
The thing about rock bottom?
Once you’re there, you have nothing else to lose.
And Creed Daugherty just made himself enemy number one
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
My demons would bend yours over.
—Creed’s secret thoughts
Creed
It was the beeping that woke me. Not the pain.
My eyes cracked open, and I stared at the white ceiling for quite a long time before movement at my side had me moving my head to see in that direction.
What I saw had my entire world crumbling.
“Mom?”
What was she doing here?
And how had she found me?
She grinned wickedly. “You thought you could hide, didn’t you?”
My stomach sank.
I’d thought that I could hide.
That I’d be able to hide both Bernice and me until she was eighteen and old enough to be out from under our mother’s thumb.
“Well, it sucks to say, but you didn’t do a very good job.” She bared her crooked, meth-addled teeth at me and said, “But look who made the mistake now. Town golden boy, Justin Arquette, drunk driving with his sister in the car. Plows into a police station and kills two officers.”
My hand jerked in surprise, and the clink of metal on metal had a feeling of nausea welling over me.
I was already shaking my head. “I don’t drink.”
Because why would I when I’d seen all the bad things that could happen when you drank?
Her smile scared the shit out of me. “Don’t you?”
No.
No, I did not.
Because I’d seen what substance abuse did to my parents.
I wouldn’t touch drugs or alcohol.
Neither would Bernice.
“What happened?” I asked, stomach sick.
“You were drunk,” she repeated. “Can’t believe it. My golden boy. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”
I fisted my hands.
Nine months later
The clang of the gavel hitting the wood on the judge’s desk felt like the final nail in my coffin.
“Sixty years,” I heard Bernie whisper, her voice cracking. “This can’t be right.”
But it was right.
I’d gotten sixty years in prison for killing two cops during my “drunk driving” accident.
“He killed two cops.” My mother snickered, sounding overjoyed. “It’s right.”
She crossed her hands in front of her and stood, looking so prim and proper that it hurt.
“Since you’re going in for a while.” My mom smiled. “I hope you know that I’ll take really good care of your sister.”
This fucking bitch.
Six years later
“I found something out,” my sister whispered.
My head tilted. “What?”
She clenched her hand on the phone and stared into my eyes, her gaze heavy. “I found out how Mom got you drunk.”
My stomach sank. “You did?”
I’d always suspected that she was behind it.
Any time anything went wrong with my life, she was responsible.
“The last time that Mom had to go into rehab, they injected her with alcohol intravenously to help with withdrawals. That’s where she got the idea,” she said. “And you weren’t the one responsible for smashing into that police station. She was. I…some of my memories came back recently.”
I blinked.
“Really?” I breathed.
“Really. I knew you didn’t kill them.”
I hadn’t.
I knew I hadn’t.
Yet, every single time I tried to tell everyone that, they looked at me like I was the scum of the earth.
The truth was, my car had plowed into a police station.
I did have a blood alcohol level of 0.22.
And I did happen to be in the area of where the accident had taken place, though I’d been passed out on the street a block from the police station.
But here was the thing.
I’d never driven drunk before. Hell, I’d never drank alcohol at all before. I had a stellar driving record, never had a speeding ticket in my life, and I never even drove above the speed limit.
I was too scared to.
The town that I’d lived in hated us.
My mom had burned a lot of bridges, and I had to keep my nose clean or else I’d end up in jail right beside her. Because the cops of Cedar Ridge had no tolerance for Arquettes.
But what I’d been accused of doing…I knew I hadn’t done it.
Yet, there was no proof.
My sister, who’d been involved in the accident, had suffered a brain injury that’d caused her to forget everything for about a forty-eight-hour time period.
The only people there to witness was a homeless woman—who I was sure my mom had paid off—and a cop that I knew my mom had fucked in order to get him to help her.
My mom had it out for me since the day that I was born.
I spent my entire life barely surviving, and when my little sister had come along, I’d spent my every waking moment making sure that my mother’s filth didn’t affect her.
When I’d turned eighteen, I’d petitioned the courts for custody of Bernice.
It’d been pretty easy to get. My mom hadn’t shown up to court and had even said to multiple witnesses that “maybe it would be better for Bernice to live with Justin.”
And we’d lived happily ever after for a whole two and a half years before my mom had seen that I had a little bit of money to my name and gotten jealous.