[Trails of Sin 01.0] Knotted Read online

  And there won’t be a trial.

  During his arraignment, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to ten years in Oklahoma’s maximum-security state penitentiary.

  Ten years.

  I don’t know how to swallow that. It’s permanently stuck in my throat. No matter how hard I cry and cough and vomit, I can’t loosen the agony of it. I can’t accept it.

  Why didn’t Lorne fight? Does he think everyone gave up on him? Did Jake and Jarret go to his hearings? He must feel more alone than I do, and that thought hurts so damn much.

  “I miss him.” My whisper shivers with vulnerability, imploring a reaction, empathy, some sign that my dad’s still in there somewhere.

  “Write him a letter.” Cold. Callous. He lifts the whiskey and drinks from the bottle.

  I’ve sent dozens of emails and letters. Is Lorne even getting them?

  I also sent a letter to Levi Tibbs, outlining all the ways I hope he suffers. He took a plea bargain. One that will set him free in seven years. I didn’t even get to testify, and I wanted to so badly. Just to be in Oklahoma, to visit my home and my family and Ketchup. And to see Jake again.

  Lifting my hand, I stare at the angry pink gash across my palm. In seven years, nothing will stop me from returning to Oklahoma and honoring my oath.

  “The man who…h-hurt me will go free before Lorne does.” I curl my fingers, squeezing the scar. “That has to make you feel something. Please, Dad. I’m—”

  “Enough!” He slices a hand through the air and grips his nape. “Lorne is dead to me, and I don’t want to hear another goddamn thing about it.” He slouches onto the couch and flicks on the TV. “You’re late for school.”

  “I know you’re hurting. If not for Lorne or me, then for the loss of our life. Our home. Mom’s home.”

  “You’re walking a dangerous line, little girl.” He stabs a finger at the door. “Go. To. School!”

  The heartache constricting my chest is so familiar I should be used to it by now. But every day, it grows louder, more formidable, and I’m too bone-weary to ignore it.

  “Why are we here?” I sniff back the rising tears. “Why aren’t we at home, fighting for him? He’s your son and—”

  “Get out!”

  “Dad, please. I feel so alone.” And sad. I don’t know how to dig my way out of this infernal emptiness. “Living here is slowly killing me. I need my family.”

  He bursts from the couch and forcibly grabs a handful of my hair. Wrenching my neck at a painful angle, he uses his grip to haul me toward the door. My legs twist and drag, and my hair rips at the roots, searing pain across my scalp.

  “Stop it! You’re hurting me!” I clutch his arms and try to wrench free. “Please, Dad. I’m sorry!”

  He yanks open the door and tosses me into the hall. My backpack lands at my feet, and the door slams, rattling the walls.

  Sharp, acidic loathing hits me hard in so many places. My knees buckle. My lungs gulp for air, and the corridor closes in.

  I grab the backpack and bolt for the stairs, desperate to escape the downward spiral. But it chases me like a charging, fire-breathing monster, ramming through me, seething, raging, and clawing at my bones. I sprint faster, push harder, trying to outrun it. I can’t let it pull me down.

  In the stairwell, I slow my gait and catch my breath.

  Pull your shit together.

  Tuck it all away.

  Bury it deep.

  God, if I could just talk to Jake, this wouldn’t feel so terrifying.

  The urge to text his old number trembles my fingers, but an undelivered message would only twist the knife. Doesn’t matter if I can’t hear his voice. I know he’s thinking about me, and I trust in the love that tethers us. We’re strong enough to weather time and distance and everything else this forsaken world throws at us. I just need to be patient. He’ll contact me as soon as he’s able.

  Until then, Dad is all I have, and I don’t know how to help him. He didn’t drink when we lived on the ranch. Didn’t use profanity or raise his hand against me. He worked all the time. Cattle ranching is what he knows. What did he think he’d do here?

  Escape seemed to be the only thing on his mind.

  Since he sold his shares of the ranch, he doesn’t need a job. But he needs something. A hobby, a passion, a thing to latch onto and distract him from drinking.

  He needs to be my dad again.

  Eight floors down, I rub away the tears and pull in a bracing breath. Then I step onto the crowded downtown street. Pedestrians breeze by me, and my shoulders hike against the ungodly clamor of traffic.

  With the bag slung over my back and my eyes on my square toe boots, I make my way toward school.

  It’s only my third day of eleventh grade, but I’ve managed to hide my pain. The girls chatter in my ear, and the boys gawk at me just like the ones in Oklahoma. They don’t care about me. They’re not my friends, and it’s just as well.

  I’m set on leaving this city, not making a home here. If I have to stay until I graduate, I’ll cope. I’ll graduate with honors, pre-college credits, and scholarships to the university back home.

  The next four blocks lead me to a taxi-congested intersection. As I turn right and separate from the flow of foot traffic, a group of high school guys veer onto my path.

  They crowd the sidewalk, surrounding me on all sides. My pulse speeds up.

  “Hey, country girl.” One of them steps in front of me, walking backward and leering at my legs above the boots.

  “Excuse me,” I say politely and slide around him.

  He grips my wrist, halting me, holding too tight. Fingers constrict like rope against my skin. Greedy eyes press against me. Voices rasp with masculine need. It’s crippling. Obliterating.

  The sidewalk melts into dirt. Glass buildings blur and warp until all I see is the ravine with its shadows and its brutal men with sick desires. Memories unfurl from the cavernous gallows inside me. Hot breath. Bruising hands. Slithering across my skin, prying between my thighs, and stabbing into me.

  “Let go.” My voice has no sound, but the shackle on my wrist releases.

  The ravine bleeds away, and the noise of the city crashes in.

  “You okay?” Blue eyes blink beneath furrowed brows. “You’re the new girl. It’s Conor, right?”

  I stumble back on wobbly legs, bumping into pedestrians. For the first time since I’ve been in this city, I’m grateful for the overcrowded sidewalk. People dart to and fro in a hellfire hurry to move around one another, but someone would stop if I screamed.

  The blue-eyed boy peruses my plaid t-shirt dress, slowing on the buttons between my breasts, lingering on the gathered cinch at my waist, and stopping at the hem above my knees. I burn to run, but I fight the impulse, because dammit, I’m not scared. I’m not.

  “I’ve always wanted to take a ride in the country.” He bites down on the lower half of his smile. “Or maybe, take the country for a ride.”

  His friends laugh.

  My spine tingles. “I’m not interested.”

  “I haven’t offered anything.” He returns to my eyes and winks. “Yet.”

  He’s just a dumb boy. Cocky, flirty, but harmless.

  Are you sure?

  “I need to go.” I spin on my heel and stride away as my heart slams against the wall of my chest.

  I expect them to chase, but they hang back, following at a distance only because we’re headed to the same place.

  Maybe I overreacted. Or maybe they’ll think I’m a bitch and leave me alone. That works since I don’t have the right pieces inside me to make friends.

  I’m not myself, and I don’t know how to find that girl again.

  I’m not where I used to be or where I want to be.

  I’m lost.

  Hollow.

  Alone.

  I just need my home. My family. Jake.

  928 miles.

  Two years.

  It’s not so far, even though it seems lik
e it.

  Will Lorne forgive me for not visiting? Will Jarret still love me? Will Jake wait for me?

  Pulling out my phone, I cue up a Rascal Flatts song. Ear buds in, I shut out the world and let the chords of What Hurts The Most carry me forward.

  It hurts to go to a school so far away from home, but I’m going.

  It hurts to endure my dad’s drunken temper, but I’m enduring.

  It hurts to miss Jake with every breath I take, but I’m doing it.

  I’m missing him and still breathing, and that hurts the most.

  SIX

  Conor

  TWO YEARS LATER…

  The hurt is more than I can bear. It penetrates deep into muscle and bone, throbbing long after each strike. I curl tighter into a fetal position on the floor and wrap my arms around my waist, protecting vital organs.

  The next kick catches me in the stomach with enough force to knock the wind from my lungs.

  I gulp and gulp and finally catch my breath. But the agony persists, pulsing at the base of my spine, relentless and overpowering. I pull my knees to my chin and release an earsplitting cry, loud enough to alert the neighbors.

  They never hear me. They’re never home. There will be no rescue.

  “Stop! Please!” I sob so hard I feel things popping in my eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “Where’s the key?” My dad’s slurring roar showers me in a mist of spit.

  He found out about the motorcycle. I don’t know what I expected, but his reaction hurts worse than the time he caught me at the bus stop trying to run away.

  Eyes droopy and glazed, he staggers around me and collides with the wall. If he were sober and wearing shoes, I’m not sure I’d survive the beating.

  It’s my fault, starting with a stupid decision I made two years ago. A reckless jaunt to the ravine. I ruined his life.

  “Give me the key!” He careens toward me, rearing back a leg to strike again.

  I roll out of his path, and his foot hits air.

  He mumbles under his breath and swings around, as if trying to orientate himself. “The key. Now!”

  “I have it. Here.” I wrestle the key from the pocket of my jeans and hold it out with trembling fingers.

  I purchased the motorcycle a week ago, and it would’ve gone undiscovered if the insurance agent hadn’t called to validate ownership.

  He balls a hand around the key, his eyes sunken and sick with madness. “You’re grounded.”

  Grounded from what? I have no friends. He confiscated all my electronics three months ago, and every penny I earned waiting tables went toward that motorcycle—the riding lessons, repairs, licensing, insurance. I’m at a total deficit. There’s nothing he can take from me.

  Pushing into a sitting position, I clamp an arm around my banged-up midsection and focus on what matters.

  I just graduated from high school at the top of my class and was offered a full-ride scholarship to University of Illinois. But I turned it down.

  I’m going home.

  Since Dad forbids me to step foot in Oklahoma, I didn’t tell him I enrolled at Oklahoma State University.

  I don’t know how I’ll pay the out-of-state tuition, even with my grants and academic scholarships. Doesn’t matter. It’s the college I’ve dreamed of attending since I was a little girl.

  It has one of the highest rated veterinarian programs in the country, and it’s only an hour drive from Jake and Julep Ranch. Two hours in the other direction, and I’ll have Lorne.

  That’s if they want to see me.

  They never called. Never wrote. Never reached out to me in any way. Not once.

  Are they missing me? Or forgetting me?

  My mind has been a convoluted, spinning mess of delusions and doubts. Most days, I concoct creative, understandable reasons for why they haven’t contacted me. Like my messages are intercepted, and my emails must be blocked. John Holsten never liked me. He wouldn’t want me distracting his boys from their future on the ranch.

  On bad days, I beat myself up with insecurities. What if they read my letters and deliberately ignored them? What if they moved on without me?

  I’ve been in constant turmoil, and I honestly don’t know how I made it through the past two years.

  But it’s finally over.

  It’s time Dad understands that.

  The plan was to wait until tomorrow when I have legal grounds to make my stance. Despite the hell he’s put me through, he’s still my father, and dammit, I just wish… I wish I had his guidance and support.

  With a ragged breath, I rise to my feet and step back until my back bumps the wall. “I’m moving out.”

  “The fuck you are! You’re still my child, and you’ll abide by my rules.”

  He stuffs the key in his pocket, as if that can stop me. I have a spare in my bedroom.

  “How the hell would you support yourself?” He scrubs the bald spot on his head, gnashing his teeth. “You got a place to live? Food? Health care? What about college? You want to throw away your education?”

  “It’s not your concern anymore.” Determination hits my blood, and I straighten my spine. “I’m eighteen. A legal adult.”

  “Not till tomorrow.”

  He remembered my birthday? The part of me that’s still his daughter swells and warms and reaches for him, but I hold myself still, hands at my sides, expression as stoic as possible.

  “If you leave here,” he says, “you’ll never amount to anything. You’ll end up on the street or shacking up with some man like a fucking whore because…” He leans in, blasting my face with the hot stink of whiskey. “Let me tell you something, little girl. You don’t have what it takes to hack it on your own.”

  Tears blur my vision, and a clenched smile strains my cheeks. “I can’t wait to prove you wrong.”

  He slaps me hard enough to ring my ears. “Go to your room!”

  My body twists backward from the stinging impact, but I remain vertical, righting my balance and racing to my bedroom.

  Closing the door behind me, I lean against it and release a soundless gasp. This time, it isn’t pain that cinches my throat in barbed wire. It’s pity.

  Instead of holding me through the hardest years of my life, he dove to the bottom of a bottle. And when that didn’t numb his misery, he unleashed it on me. Violently. Irreparably.

  Whatever love I still had for him before tonight is gone. He did that. He destroyed us.

  But he’ll never lay a hand on me again. This is where we end.

  This is how I’ll remember him.

  My heart misses a beat, and another, and my teeth sink into my lip, sawing and tearing at skin. I tremble with ice in my gut, scars on my heart, and slithering doubts in my head.

  The moment he passes out, I’m going to walk out that door. My packed bag waits in the corner, small enough to stow on the bike. My clothes, my horse paintings, my guitar—I have to leave it all behind.

  Maybe the motorcycle wasn’t my best idea, but it was cheaper than a car, more fuel efficient, and didn’t require an expensive parking spot at the apartment.

  More than that, it gives me something I haven’t felt in so long. When I straddle the powerful frame, it’s like I’m in the saddle. Hands on the reins. The wind in my hair. It almost feels like home.

  Home.

  What if the Holstens turn me away? What if John won’t let me work there? I don’t have money for food or gas or textbooks. If I can’t spend the summer on the ranch, I won’t have a place to live. I won’t have anyone.

  My nerves unravel, turning my stomach into a gaping wound of dread. I’m so damn scared I can’t stand myself.

  It’s the same fear that kept my bruises hidden under my clothes. The same fear that stopped me from going to the cops. Getting my dad thrown in jail wouldn’t have sent me back to Oklahoma. It would’ve ripped another person from my life.

  I’m already motherless.

  Brotherless.

  I’m terrified t
o be fatherless.

  Yet in the end, I still lost him.

  I square my shoulders. Fear can twist me up all it wants, but it won’t stop me.

  Kneeling beside the packed bag, I check the contents for the hundredth time. Summer clothes, toothbrush, bottled water, snacks, and… My fingers bump against the small gift box.

  A flutter swirls in my chest, energizing me with hope and love.

  I wrapped the box in newspaper last year, anticipating the day I would give it to Jake. It’s just a bracelet. A two-inch leather cuff with a silver horseshoe charm that looks like a C. For Conor. I spent weeks in my Welding and Metal Fabrication class, designing it, melting and reshaping the metal, and stitching the leather.

  I’m finally going to see him open it. Feel the warmth of those beautiful brown eyes on my face. Smell the sun on his skin. Taste the hunger on his lips. And hear the gravelly rumble in his voice. God, I’ve missed his sounds—the breathy groans, the belly-deep laughter, and the southern drawl when he sings, that seductive twang that makes me shiver so good.

  Living without him has been a torment worse than death. My pulse hammers with urgency to go, to leave now, but the footsteps and banging in the front room suspends me in purgatory.

  I tuck into the corner of my room with my guitar and quietly strum. After a few numbing songs, I settle on Need You Now by Lady Antebellum. The yearning, lonely melody tries to bring me down, but I won’t let it. I’m too resolved. Damn near bursting with excitement. I have the power to change my life, and an hour later, that’s exactly what I do.

  Hair plaited into two braids, long-sleeved flannel over a t-shirt and jeans, square toes on my feet, bag slung over my shoulder, motorcycle helmet under an arm, and steel in my spine—I leave my bedroom.

  I swipe a hundred dollars from the wallet in the kitchen.

  I walk past my snoring, sprawled-on-the-couch, pathetic excuse of a father.

  I slip out of the apartment and go home.

  SEVEN

  Conor

  Sandbank

  Population 415

  As the welcome sign blurs by, I mentally subtract my family of three from the population. Then I add back one for my return. How many others have come and gone in the past two years? Births and deaths and…