Page 1 of Comeback
Chapter 1
Emma Swenson
The windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the downpour, but our cab driver didn’t slow. He raced through the storm, raindrops pinging off the metal roof like gunfire, bolts of lightning forking through the night sky.
After surviving the hair-raising flight to Sarnia, dying in a cab on the highway wasn’t exactly the ending I had mind.
“Would you please slow down?” I asked, shouting to be heard over the cacophonous rush of water.
The driver glanced at me in the rear view mirror, his eyes narrowed into nasty little slits, the vehicle still recklessly barreling down the highway.
“I said,slow down. My daughter’s scared.”
But maybe the right word would’ve beeninconsolable.Mackenzie had been shaking with fear and sobbing on and off ever since we flew into a patch of turbulence that kicked our plane around in the sky like a tin can. The previous forty-eight hours of our lives weren’t much smoother.
Reluctantly, the driver let off the gas and we slowed.
“Thank you,” I said.
Somewhere during the hour and a half drive from the airport, the lightning stopped, and Mackenzie finally managed to whimper herself to sleep in my arms. The poor thing was still asleep when we arrived at our new house.
I carried Mackenzie in one arm and the single duffel bag I’d hurriedly packed with the other arm. I ran through the rain, up the driveway, andknocked on the bungalow’s front door. I waited for what felt like an eternity.
It’d been years since I’d last seen my cousin. My heart began to race. I wondered what she’d look like now. I hoped she could forgive me for letting so much time pass.
At last, the door opened.
“Emma!” Nicole shouted, opening the door wide and ushering us inside. “Holy crap, Mackenzie is so big now!” She wrapped her arms around Mackenzie and me and hugged us both. “God, it’s been so long.”
“It has,” I admitted, a twinge of guilt in my heart. “You look amazing, Nicky.”
In fact, she looked exactly the same, like she hadn’t aged a day. Something about that fact was very comforting—and all my worries were snuffed out in an instant, myenraged mama bearemotions laid to rest.
I finally felt safe.
And just like that,the reality of what we’d just been through hit me like a truck. My stiff upper lip began to tremble and I broke down in my cousin’s embrace.
“You’re home now,cuz,” she said. “Everything’s gonna be okay.”
Chapter 2
Jack Hathaway
I hadn’t even caught my breath before I climbed out of bed and made my way down the hall.
“Hey! Where are you going?” what’s-her-name called after me, giggling.
I turned the shower knob and let the sound of the hissing water be her answer. I stepped in, put the bar of soap to my groin, and washed her off my dick.
I shut my eyes and tried to enjoy the warm water rushing down my body.
Thing was, every time I closed my eyes, I sawher. Andhim. Together. Sucking and fucking in all sorts of places—his car, her car, her bed,mybed?
The one place they always fucked, though, was behind my back.
My blood boiled, but before I could even let myself feel the rage, a glimpse of something else flashed through my mind: the aftermath of the night he told me. His body. Cold, limp and lifeless in his mangled BMW.
I never even saw the scene—not in person, not in photographs. But the picture in my mind was as real as could be.
