Page 41 of Love, Hate, Love

“Stop lying. He knew what I’d said to you verbatim.”

There was only one place that I’d ever repeated anything Kade said to me, and that was in my diary. My asshole stepfather had read it.

How did I even explain that? Kade would probably think it was a lie anyway. He didn’t trust anything I said.

It wouldn’t convince him of anything. He’d gotten his chunk of soul for the day. Now I wanted to go curl up in a ball and lick my wounds.

“Let’s not pretend we’re friends when you’ve repeatedly made our situation clear. Now just get out of my way.”

He dropped his arms and stepped back.

I left, reminding myself again that he wasn’t a safe place, not now, and he probably never had been.

Chapter19

Kade

The secondI heard that man’s voice last night, my muscles had immediately reacted. They’d tensed like they knew Greg needed a beating before my consciousness had caught up. I hadn’t meant to overhear, but once I’d caught some of it, I hadn’t been able to stop listening. My instincts had been right. It was the next morning and my hands were still fisted.

Chuck walked into the office as he often did. He’d probably seen Leah twenty times today. I leaned back, giving up the pretense of reading through my file. “Hey, how’s everything going?”

Chuck stopped and turned, tilting his head like he was trying to figure out what I was really asking. If there’d been any kind of problem, he would’ve already told me, and we both knew it.

“Good?” he said slowly.

“What’s everyone up to? Everything going smoothly?” I asked, tilting my head in the vague direction of the stables.

“She’s a little quieter, maybe, but otherwise fine, if that’s what you’re trying to ask me,” he said.

Quieter. That wasn’t good. “I wasn’t asking about her specifically, but it’s funny you’d single her out. So she’s quiet? How quiet? Is she speaking at all?”

He leaned on the table, devoting all his attention to me. “If you’re worried about Leah, you could try talking to her.”

“She doesn’t talk to me,” I said. “And I’m not worried. It was a question based on what you said.”

“If she won’t talk to you, it’s because you don’t talk to her. You growl at her.” He was looking at me, brows raised in what was beginning to feel like judgment.

I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck. “I don’tgrowlat her.”

“Yes, you do. She’s not the first person to have a hard time. She’ll be fine. She’s a tough one. She’s in the stables right now, not that you’d want to go talk to her”—he waved his hands in the air—“but in case you wanted to check on the horses.”

Chuck turned and walked out, leaving me alone in the office.

If I did go check the horses, it was my ranch. If I happened upon her in the stables, they were my stables. I was allowed to go there.

My phone buzzed beside me, but I ignored it, until it went on, and on, and on. I finally grabbed it, seeing Monroe’s name.

“What’s up?”

“Hey, I have to talk to Leah,” he said. “It’s sort of a sensitive matter. Something happened today that can’t wait.”

“Everything okay?”

There was a pause, and I could imagine his sitting there deciding whether he should tell me. If I knew Monroe as well as I thought, he wouldn’t need much of a push.

“I don’t want to pry, but if it’s bad, maybe I can help,” I added.

His fidgeting could be heard through the phone. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this first, but you’ll find out anyway. What does it even matter?”

---