Everything I Left Unsaid(93)

Instead he wrote: Yes. I will always have you.





ANNIE


Yes. I will always have you.



I tucked my happiness, my glee, behind all my serious thick walls of worry. About my life. My future.

But that hope kept me lit up, and I felt like I glowed, like a lantern. The future was not entirely scary. Not entirely unsure. When the bad stuff was over, there was something good waiting for me.

Something amazing.

Dylan.

The door to my trailer was unlocked. I hadn’t had time last night to find my keys, much less lock up after myself.

Had it only been last night? Really?

How much time did it take for everything to change? I’d moved like a snail through my life before. So slow to know what I wanted. So slow to change. That was over now. I was changing with every breath I took.

I took the metal steps up into my trailer, set down my bag in front of the stove, and turned to shut the door. I slammed it hard the first time so it didn’t bounce.

“Hello, Annie.”

The voice stilled my blood. My lungs. The world swam around me. Instinctively I glanced back toward those captain chairs I never sat in, just to be sure that my exhausted, overwhelmed mind wasn’t playing tricks on me.

But there he was in his faded Wranglers and the dark short-sleeved shirt with the pearl snaps. His hat, sweat-stained and dusty, sat on the chair next to him.

Hoyt.

In my trailer.

The half second it took me to process what was happening was a half second too long, and by the time I was fumbling with the door trying to get it open, trying to get out, away, he was on me.

My arm was locked in his hand, his fingers pushing the nerves on its underside hard into the bone. Immediately my hand went numb. His other hand was so big that when it covered my mouth it partially covered my nose, too, and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t…breathe.

“Annie,” he whispered. That little smile on his face revealing the crooked eyetooth, the chipped incisor from his days in the rodeo. “Please don’t make this worse. I need…You need to be good,” he said. “And not scream. Can you do that for me? Be good for me?”

His breath smelled like coffee and Halls. He used to eat cough drops like candy, and the scent, familiar and nauseating, sent terror through me. My eyes rolled in my head and I strained away from him. I sank my teeth into the meat of his hand.

“That’s a no,” he said, his face turning hard and awful, and I knew what was coming.

Perhaps it had always been coming. Despite running. Despite that zigzagging escape. Despite this sudden belief that I’d committed to just hours ago to stand up to him, to demand he get off my land and pay for what he’d done.

This moment had been what was in store for me all along.

Some things we just can’t outrun.

He hit me so hard my head bounced against the edge of the stove.

And the world went dark.





For Adam. For everything.





Acknowledgments




My life is rich with friends who inspire and help me. My gratitude is endless.

To Maureen McGowan, Ripley Vaughn, and Stephanie Doyle: you are the foundation of so many great things in my life. Thank you.

To Bonnie Staring, Shari Slade, and Carolyn Crane: thank you for your comments and support—your input made the books so much better. I’m really honored to have you in my corner.

To the Toronto Romance Writers, the Western New York Romance Writers, and the Ottawa Romance Writers: your workshops and the resulting lightbulb moments I had made these books possible.

Simone St. James, between the beers and the writer’s retreats? we’ve got a good thing going.

Pam Hopkins, my agent—an amazing compass constantly pointing me in the right direction.

Shauna Summers, Gina Wachtel, Sarah Murphy, and the rest of the amazing team at Bantam: your hard work and faith in these books has been humbling and inspiring.

And to my readers: I am just so blessed. Thank you.





BY M. O’KEEFE


Everything I Left Unsaid





WRITTEN AS MOLLY O’KEEFE


THE BOYS OF BISHOP NOVELS


Wild Child

Never Been Kissed

Between the Sheets

Indecent Proposal





CROOKED CREEK NOVELS


Can’t Buy Me Love

Can’t Hurry Love

Crazy Thing Called Love





About the Author


M. O’KEEFE can remember the exact moment her love of romance began; in seventh grade, when Mrs. Nelson handed her a worn paperback copy of The Thorn Birds. It wasn’t long before she was filling up notebooks with her own story ideas, featuring girls with glasses and talking cats. Writing as Molly O’Keefe, she has won two RITA awards and three RT Reviewers Choice Awards. She lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband, two kids, and the largest heap of dirty laundry in North America. When she’s not writing, she’s imagining what she would say if she ever got stuck in an elevator with Bruce Springsteen.

molly-okeefe.com

Facebook.com/MollyOkeefeBooks

@MollyOKwrites





Annie and Dylan’s darkly emotional, wildly intense romance continues in the breathtaking sequel