Page 33 of Hold Me Until Morning

I swore, there’d never come a day that he didn’t think of me as eight years old. The proof of it came in full force when he angled his head down the long row of stalls where Cody had disappeared, voice curling with disgust. “And what the hell is he doing here?”

“He’s just a contractor who’s working a landscape project. He came to get my approval to start digging out around one of the pastures. I can handle him.”

And now I was lying to him like I was sixteen. Pathetic, considering I was twenty-four, had a child, had been married and seeking a divorce.

Maybe lying to my father about men came naturally since I’d spent so much time hiding the truth of my marriage from him. The truth of who Pruitt was. At first, I’d not wanted to believe it myself before it’d become a dirty secret.

A secret I’d been chained to.

One that had festered and decayed.

A rotted pit where I refused to go under.

So, I’d left Pruitt, praying I had enough on him that he would never dare try to touch me, all while feeling despicable that I didn’t have enough courage to actually use the evidence against him.

Hold him accountable.

Expose who he was.

Instead, I’d come here, free but a hostage. Captive to this fear. Trepidation and alarm roiling in my spirit. Constantly looking behind me waiting for my choice to catch up, for the veiled threats Pruitt had made to manifest as real.

“Watch out for him,” my father said, referring to Cody when he had no idea who was really the danger. “You know I don’t trust him.”

The warning rang between us, the memory of that summer when Cody had been working on his ranch so distant yet so distinct.

It was a time that was carved in the middle of me like the branding of scars.

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

Frowning, my father squeezed my shoulders tighter. “I always worry about you.” He hesitated, then pushed into the territory that I kept blockaded. “Pruitt called me. He’s worried about you, too.”

He might as well have driven a blade through the center of my chest.

I bit it back because my father didn’t know. I couldn’t blame him when I’d kept him in the dark. I did my best to keep it together when I said, “Pruitt doesn’t have a right to be concerned about me any longer.”

My father’s brow pinched. “I still don’t understand, Hailey. He is a good man. Provided for you and Madison. Loved you like crazy. And he still does. He’s worried sick about you. Maybe you should?—”

“Please, don’t say it,” I cut him off. Disquiet jackhammered my heart, the beating so loud that it roared in my ears, thick as it pounded through my blood.

I wanted to confess it so he would understand. Tell him so he would stop urging me to go back to Pruitt, the way he had been doing since I’d left him.

Pruitt Russel had looked good on paper.

He had put on a dazzling front for my father that he’d been completely blinded by the same way as I’d been when I’d first met him.

Successful.

Rich.

Powerful.

My father had more than approved.

I guessed I’d been enamored, too. Glamoured, maybe. Blinded by the young owner of a gorgeous ranch in Austin, where I’d taken a position to work with horses, who’d taken an interest in me. I’d been desperate for anything that made me feel good after the tragedy that had befallen me here, and I’d all but run away in search of something better.

I’d somehow thought that was Pruitt.

But so many times what looked good on paper didn’t take into account what happened behind closed doors. Under the surface. In the secreted places that whispered of wickedness and atrocities.

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