Page 151 of Three Reckless Words

He shrugs, his thin shoulders jerky, and looks away again.

“Whatever,” he huffs. “So you don’t care about her. Got it.”

Damn.

“Colt, I didn’t mean—”

“Dad, it’s—whatever!” He tears an empty trash bag off the roll and heads back into the last of the mess to start raking it up, surly and wounded.

My heart sinks like lead.

Everything keeps coming out wrong and it’s fucking me up royally.

Colt’s old enough to have an adult conversation about this stuff—and he deserves to be let into parts of my life now that he’s getting older. Especially when it concerns his mom and the woman I’m sort of maybe with.

But no, I go and blow up at him because talking about either of them feels like tearing open fresh wounds.

And that’s not accounting for the mess Winnie’s ex-fiancé left behind.

We had an unhinged intruder on my property destroying her stuff. All because she turned his ass down, and he never learned to respect a woman’s wishes.

Oh, I’d love nothing more than to wind up alone in a room with Holden for a few minutes with no cameras.

But I hate how violent it makes me feel, how impossible it is to deny my gut feeling for Winnie—or how hard I’m running from the truth.

The similarities to how I handled the late Rina situation beat me in the face.

It sticks in my head like a burr. No matter how hard I try to focus on cleaning up, I can’t stop thinking about it.

Winnie and Rina.

Rina and Winnie.

Two very different women.

Both bringing pure electric chaos into my life.

By the time I’ve faced the long-delayed truth they bring, cleaning up Solitude might be a cakewalk.

19

WORDS LIKE HONEY (WINNIE)

You couldn’t keep me away from Solitude with a flamethrower.

Archer persuaded me to come back and sleep at his place, yes—and that’s fine, after Holden wrecked everything, it didn’t take much persuading—but I head back early the next day to sort it out.

I know it’s crazy, but I feel weirdly responsible.

If I hadn’t come here with my raggedy life and questionable decisions trailing behind me like a flimsy caboose, none of this would’ve happened.

Holden wouldn’t have shown up to mess with Archer’s property. He wouldn’t have destroyed those poor bees.

It makes me tear up even now. The implications are brutal.

Too personal.

Too cruel.

---