Page 52 of Riding Jamie

His brows climb up toward his hairline, a shocked laugh falling from his lips. He opens his mouth, closes it, laughs again. His hand claps down heavily on my shoulder, and I almost tear up at the pure pride I can feel in the gesture.

“Hell, kid,” he huffs. “Maybe we’d have been better off sending you to school for finance than trying to get you in the ring.”

Astonishment pours through me at that statement, and I blink at him incredulously. I didn’t hear that right, did I? Is this just because I may be on to something, or does he actually mean it?

“You always said I was made for the circuit,” I say questioningly. “You said it was what I was good at.”

“Look, son, I’ve been hard on you,” he says, not quite meeting my eyes. “I wanted you to live the life I wanted, and I didn’t think about what you wanted. You were never happy on the circuit.”

I wasn’t. Not for a second.

“I…Dad.”

“It might be too little too late, but let your old man try to fix things, would you? I didn’t give you a chance to find anything else you were good at.” His voice is still rough, but there’s a twinge of a smile on his lips. “Go to school if you need. Start your own business if you want. The town could use a new financial advisor. You’d be good at it. You could take care of your girl.”

Goosebumps break out over my entire body, and I stumble for words uselessly.

“I’ll go talk to David. We’ll clear all this up, and we’ll take everything we can to the police,” he says. “Don’t lose Oakley over this. Your mom wouldn’t ever forgive me.”

I have no idea what to say, so I don’t say anything. All I can think to do is grab him with my good arm and yank him in for a hug. It squishes my arm between us, but I don’t pay attention to the pain.

“Thank you, Dad,” I whisper. “Thank you.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

OAKLEY

“Get out of bed,”Maggie demands, shoving her way into my room.

I shoot her an acidic look from my desk, snapping my journal closed. I’m fucking exhausted, and I have absolutely no energy to deal with my bratty little sister right now, no matter how much I love her. Figuring out how to get Jamie to trust that I know what I want even if he doesn’t think he’s good enough is kind of taking precedence over everything else.

“Magnolia, I’m really not in the?—”

She cuts me off by shoving her phone under my nose. I jerk back, ready to shout at her to leave me the hell alone, when I catch sight of what’s on her screen.

All the blood rushes from my face, and I yank Maggie’s phone out of her hands. If I could think, I’d realize how serious this must be for her to let me take her phone from her.

The camera work is shaky, and the edge of Maggie’s sweater keeps cutting off half the frame, but I can see plenty. I can see Shane’s artfully styled hair and his blinding smile, and then the camera shifts to the person sitting across from him.

Savannah fucking Ward.

I see red, every hope I had of Shane being a good person vanishing in an instant. And then they started talking.

The audio is shitty, but I can hear everything I need to.

“They’ll break up soon. I gave her the documents…Aunt Tammy. That Walker kid…hopeless…he’ll never convince her to stay. Then I just…save the day, she’ll eat it right up.”

“Serves…right. Montgomery Princess deserves it…could’ve saved herself the trouble if…didn’t come between me and her stupid brother.”

My hand clenches into a fist on my desk, anger rising up viciously. It’s bad enough she’d do this to me and Jamie, but thinking about what would’ve happened if I didn’t steer Bo away from her makes me sick.

“All that money…ours soon enough, kiddo…won’t be long before I can propose.”

An angry snort falls from my lips at hearing that. Good fucking luck trapping me in a sham of a marriage. I’m Oakley fucking Montgomery, and no one fucks with me and gets away with it.

“Mags, where did you get this?”

“Penny and I saw them at Ruby’s when we were out shopping,” she says, shrugging carelessly. “Guess they didn’t recognize us with our hoods up.”

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