by Alla Kar
His blue eyes sparkled in the early morning sun, and his tan skin glistened. I knew girls that’d kill for skin like that. But it wasn’t the tanned skin, too-blue eyes, or lean muscles that were so appealing, although they didn’t hurt—it was the beautiful boy inside. The boy that risked ass whoopings to just see me.
The boy that had turned into the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
Boone dropped me off in my driveway, which was something he’d never done before. He leaned over and interlaced his finger into my hair and molded his mouth against my own. There was something fierce in the way he kissed me. Deliberate, calm but forceful; it sent my nerves to the edge of the cliff. How would I live without him? What if—
No. I gripped his jaw and pried his mouth open wider. I would have Boone Cross, and I didn’t care what the stupid confession was. He was supposed to be with me. Forever.
I had to pry his hands and mouth away from me. His eyes were intense. I knew there were so many things going on in his head but he never showed it on his face. He was always my anchor.
I stepped out into the hot day, and immediately wiped my brow. The sun beat down on my skin, but I took the numb feeling with ease because it took away from the growing lump in my throat.
I opened the door and was greeted by silence. Sam was still out with Jace, but Bug stood in the dining room entrance with a blank face. “Hey, Bug,” I said, careful to watch her gaze.
“Where have you been?”
I matched her gaze, lifting my chin. “With Boone Cross.”
She frowned and closed her eyes. “Your daddy called for you. He knows about Boone and is frantic. I’d advise you to get to the hospital to see him now.”
I was nineteen, but knowing my dad knew filled me with fear. How had he found out? Well, we hadn’t been hiding anything the last few days. “Good,” I said, and I was glad I sounded stronger than I felt.
Bug stepped forward, sadness etched her worn face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wish this was easier for you. Just go see your daddy. He needs to tell you something.”
Pain struck my throat, and I felt like I was going to die. Who was choking me? Where had the air gone? Swallowing the painful lump, I turned and went back out the door I’d just come in.
Mom’s old car sat where I’d parked it, and I got in. The hot leather scorched the backs of my legs, but I didn’t care. Some kind of feeling was better than the numbness growing in my chest. Was Dad going to tell me everything? Or was he just going to chew me out about Boone?
By the time I got to the hospital, tears were falling down my face. Anger and fear overtook my body and made it hard to breathe. Nurses and patients all stared as I walked down the long, cold hallway to my dad’s room.
I didn’t care.
Dad was leaning back against the headrest with a pained look on his face. “Dad,” I whispered at the door.
His eyes popped opened. “Josie,” his voice was clipped. “Why are you doin’ this? Bug told me you’ve been snooping in your momma’s stuff. What are you looking for?”
Dad’s relaxed demeanor irked me. “I’m searching for answers.”
His eyes never left mine. “Answers to what, exactly? To why you have to sneak around with the Cross boy? I know everything. Bug told me you’ve been sneaking around with him. The one thing I asked you not to do—”
“Is the one thing I need to survive, Dad. Boone is the only man for me, and you’re telling me I can’t have him for some unknown reason.”
Dad frowned. “You don’t understand.”
“No,” I nearly shouted. “I don’t. Why don’t you finally enlighten me? I know about Cindy Ferrell. I know she’s mom’s sister and I know she disappeared. How? Where did she go? Why does she matter so much, and why is she hidden?”
“Josie,” he whispered shaking his head. “How do you know she’s your mother’s sister?”
“I found Mom’s old diary, and I’m going to read it all tonight. I don’t care what anyone says. You’ll have to pry it from my dead fingers.”
Dad’s brown eyes filled with tears, and the beeping of his monitor sped up. “I didn’t want it to happen like this.” He closed his eyes tightly. “I always told myself I’d tell you before I died, but I didn’t think it’d been this soon. I’m not ready,” he whispered.
I wanted to walk over and hug him, but my anger wouldn’t let me move.
“There are things you won’t understand, and I don’t expect you to. I need you to be calm. It isn’t something you need to read about in a diary. You should hear it from me.”
Oh God. My empty stomach tried to push up something that wasn’t there, and the burn in my throat scorched my insides.
“Tell me.”
Dad sighed, and wiped a palm down his sweaty face. “There are things you’ll have to read about in the diary. I’m sure it’s all there, since she has it hid.” He let out a bitter laugh. “And there are things I’ve done that you won’t like. I just want you to know that everything I did was for you. Wrong or right, it was all for you,” his voice broke.
I walked over, before my feet gave out, and took a seat on the oversized chair in the corner next to his bed. The hospital was noisy, but the only thing I could focus on was my dad. “Wendy isn’t your mother, Josie. Cindy is your mother.”
What?
Everything danced along my vision but I couldn’t focus. Was Dad saying my name or was I imagining it? The parched feeling in my mouth turned into the bitter taste of hate.
“She’s not my … ” I mumbled incoherently.
“Princess, you’ve got to understand what happened. Please, just read the diary. It’ll explain everything.” Tears coated Dad’s worn face, and the monitor started beeping rapidly. “I love you, Josie.”
Terror slowly built in my chest. How could my mom not be my mom? I had looked just like her—and Cindy. I looked more like Cindy. The way she stood and the dimple in her cheek. She was my mother. She was my biological mother. “Dad, but I don’t understand. Why—” sobs broke from my mouth. They sounded foreign and vicious. “Why would you keep that from me?”
His face turned pale. “Because if everything got out, it’d ruin our family’s reputation in this town. You’ve lived here most of your life. How many young people do you know that stick around? It’s all older residents that are friends and classmates of your grandmother’s. Our logging business is based here, Josie. What about the convenient store? We can’t let a scandal get out like that. You know most of our sponsors are the older generation and Christian based. It wouldn’t have looked good to have a child out of wedlock.”
I shook my head, trying to concentrate on what he told me. “It’s been nineteen years,” I whispered. “Why does it matter now?”
Dad frowned. “Everyone would know we’d lied for nineteen years, baby. You need to try and—”
“I need to go,” I whispered, standing to my feet even though they felt like rubber.
Dad closed his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Princess. This wasn’t how I wanted to tell you. I wanted everything to be different. Everything.”
I furrowed my brow. I wanted to ask so many more questions, but how could I? Everything had just been flipped on its side, and I had no idea how to set it back straight. Or maybe my entire life I’d been on my side and now everything was making sense. Now I knew the reason why my mother didn’t love me, and why she ignored me.
I wasn’t hers, and she wasn’t mine.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I rasped. “Why? You didn’t think I could keep a secret?”
Dad shook his head. “There’s more to it, Josie. Please go read. I can’t tell you everything. It’ll be easier to read it. Easier to understand. I’m sorry.”
The sound of my feet hitting the tile floor was loud, and it took me a few seconds to even feel the floor beneath me. My mother wasn’t my mom. How had this happened? How had my aunt become my mom, and why did that matter for Boone and me?
I needed to know b
ut I couldn’t breathe.
“No running in the hallway, miss.”
I ignored the yells in my direction. My heartbeat jolted in my chest and it pushed my feet faster into the tile floor. The keys rattled in my hand, and after a few tries I got the car into drive.
I couldn’t go home and face Bug or find Samantha. I needed to find Boone, and we needed to read this damn diary.
Boone’s truck sat in the driveway of the house they were working on. Jace wasn’t there because he’d called in sick. But the other truck in the driveway struck a nerve in the back of my head. It was the truck I’d seen parked in the shallow of the woods by our house.
It was Mr. Cross’s truck.
Boone stood up on the roof with his shirt off, his hand cupped over his eyes. I didn’t care that Mr. Cross stood beside him with a scowl on his face. I didn’t give a rat’s ass. I needed Boone.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, starting toward the ladder. “What’s the matter?”
I gasped for air but it wasn’t getting to my chest quick enough. Boone jumped from the middle of the ladder down to the ground and ran toward me. The worry in his eyes showed me exactly how I looked on the outside. “Raven,” he whispered, cupping my face. “What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Boone, she doesn’t need to be here,” Mr. Cross said. Boone’s fingers tightened on my face, but he ignored him.
“What is it?”
“The girl in the pictures in my mother’s sister, and she’s my biological mother,” I said through heavy breaths.
Boone’s brow furrowed. “What? You’re—oh, God. What’s the purpose in hiding it?” he whispered, dragging his thumbs down my mouth. “Baby, I’m so sorry, but this explains your bitch of a—”
“Aunt,” I choked out. “She’s my aunt.”
“Boone, she needs to leave. Now.”
Boone twirled around on his heel and faced his dad. I couldn’t see his face but by the way his body tensed I imagined it showed how pissed he was. “Shut up, Dad. She isn’t goin’ anywhere if she doesn’t want to. Do you not care about anybody but yourself?”
He barked out a bitter laugh and sidestepped Boone to look at me. “I only care about you,” he said, pointing at Boone. “That girl is going to get our family banned from this town.”
“No,” Boone yelled. “You’re the one that was datin’ a married woman, Dad. I’m not. Whatever happened all those years ago has nothing to do with us, and I don’t give a fuck what you have to say about it. Can’t you see she’s upset? Can’t you understand how much I love her?”
“Yes,” his voice lowered. “I can understand and I do. But this will cost us our family. They’ll keep their word.”
“Who is they?” Boone snarled. I could feel the anger from a few feet back. Stepping forward, I wrapped my hand around his elbow. He glanced down and the anger in his eyes scared me.
“It’s okay. Dad said the diary would explain everything. We need to go read it now.”
Boone sneered at his dad. “I’m leaving. We’re going to go fix whatever it is you fucked up.”
Boone’s hand engulfed my waist and he pulled me toward his truck. I didn’t look back at his dad as we got into the truck and started down the gravel road. Boone cast his eyes my way and reached over to grab my hand. “I can’t believe she’s your mother. I knew something was wrong, but never did I guess it’d be this.”
“Me neither,” I whispered. “My mom isn’t my mom.”
“Is your dad your real dad?”
“Yes, and that explains why I’ve always been close to him. He truly loved me as his child. Wendy didn’t.”
Boone squeezed my hand and floored it. The trees grew into one big blur of greens and browns, and tears smeared against my cheek.
Boone gripped my hand and helped me out of the driver’s door. The rubbery feeling in my legs was back, but Boone’s arm around my waist steadied me. Duke came barreling toward us but Boone called him off.
The stairs. The couch. Had I sat down? Everything was spinning. My mother was dead and I’d never know her. My aunt hates me. What was going on?
Boone opened the diary and sat it out in front of me.
“Raven, are you ready?”
I looked into his eyes and swallowed. “Yes.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Boone
My heart ached. I needed to take away Josie’s pain. I knew reading the diary would only add to it, but it was the only way to fix us.
July 23, 1995
She’s pregnant. The golden child is pregnant, and Mom knows. There isn’t much she can do about it but pull her from school. She’ll go away for a year and then come back after the baby is born, but without the baby. Or that’s what Mom’s says. It doesn’t look like Cindy wants to give it up.
It’s Frank Sawyer’s child, which lessens Mom’s anger because of who he is. He has money and David Cross doesn’t. It’s all I’ve heard for the past three months. “Why can’t you find you a boy from a nice family, Wendy?” “Why can’t you find someone who actually has a plan for his life?”
And now look. The perfect Sawyer boy knocked up her youngest daughter, and that’s karma for talking about the girl up the road that went “away” for a year.
But nothing is worse than her blaming me. “If you hung around better people and acted like a lady, Cindy would have taken your example. Now look what you’ve driven her to.” I could hardly maintain my anger talking to her. I can’t wait until graduation so I can move away with David and be free.
Josie glanced my way, and a tear fell from her eye. I could see the wheels turning in her mind and the hatred for her mother evaporating. “More?” I asked.
Josie nodded. “All of it.”
December 20, 1995
I can’t take it. Mom’s locked the outside of my door and windows. I’m not allowed out of the house except for school. She’s hell-bent on keeping me from David, and I swear she’ll regret it.
Cindy is still here hiding in her room, only a few months from being sent away to have her baby, but Frank is allowed up there with her. I guess it’s not like she’ll get pregnant again. I can’t help but resent her for this, and it’s not her fault at all.
It’s my mother’s fault. She’s ruining everything that makes me happy, and Daddy lets her do it. He doesn’t say a word.
Josie grabbed my hand and stopped me. “Is that a tear stain?” She pointed to a faded circle in the middle of the page.
I touched her cheek. “Your—mom and you have a lot more in common than you thought.”
“My aunt,” she whispered. “She’s always been an aunt. Go on.” She motioned toward the diary.
No one cares about the hole in my chest or the hurt in my soul. No one cares, and so that makes me not care. The only thing I care about is getting away from this awful family, and starting my own.
I turned the page and looked over at Josie. Her eyes were trancelike.
April 17, 1996
Cindy went into labor today. She had Josephine Renee Sawyer at 7:03 this morning. She’s beautiful, and I can’t wait to start spoiling her. Mother’s attitude about giving her away vanished the minute she held her; I saw it in her face. There was no way Cindy would have let that happen anyway.
Since Mom wanted to keep everything quiet, we had a midwife come and deliver her at our aunt’s house a couple hours away. Frank was here with his parents and the tension lingered in the air like a rain cloud. I hate this house.
July 16, 1996
Mom is going out of town with Josie to visit her parents, which means I’ll be able to go out and see David. He promised me he’d take me out hunting with him with his new deer stand he’s been saving and saving for, and finally had enough to get a covered one. The pride on his face when I saw him at school swelled my heart. He has such a sweet heart.
Cindy is staying back so she can have a few days off from being a mom. She loves it, and we all know she loves Josie. Cindy’s been begging to come with us tomorrow,
but I’d really love some time alone. But knowing Cindy, she’ll get her way. She always get her way.
I turned to the next page and a newspaper article was folded into the crease. Josie reached for it and opened it. Cindy’s smiling face filled the top right corner of the page.
Cindy Renee Ferrell was pronounced dead on site July 17, 1996. She was hunting alongside sister, Wendy Ann Ferrell, and friend, David Alan Cross, when Cross’s gun misfired and killed Ferrell instantly. The funeral will be held July 19 at Frazer’s Funeral Home of Warren, Arkansas.
Josie’s fingers tightened on the page and her eyes rounded at the words. The ghostly look on her face took my breath away. My dad’s gun shot her. My father killed Josie’s mother. “She was killed hunting,” she whispered. “She was shot.”
I reached over and interlaced our fingers, and forced her chin up with my other hand. I wanted to cry and scream all at the same time, but I needed to be strong for her. I had to be strong for her. “Raven. Let’s finish the rest. Let’s see what happened next.”
Josie’s bottom lip trembled but she nodded.
I looked down at the page. Several months had gone by before her next entry.
August 22, 1996
I’m getting married to Frank Sawyer. I’m standing in my dress in front of the wall-length mirror in my room. My mother is downstairs feeding Josie, and I’m getting married tomorrow. The bitter taste of regret is on my tongue, but there is nothing I can do now. The damage is done.
After Cindy passed, Mom turned on me and blamed me for everything. For sneaking out with David and for letting Cindy come along. For not saving her life and not thinking about the consequences. Her hatred for David grew to a level I didn’t realize was possible. She blames him for everything when it was just an accident. He’d never hurt her on purpose. I’m not allowed to talk about it, or him; it’s like it never happened.
The first month went by in a blur of plans and options, but none of them concerned my happiness. I hurt just like everyone else did. I missed my baby sister just as much as my mom did. Then Mom’s rage grew worse, and I was the product of every cussing rant and shattered vase.