Southern Chance - Natasha Madison Page 0,14

and I hold up my hand.

“I have never once told anyone your secret. Not to my parents, not to my brother, not even to Beau, so don’t even start.”

She wipes away a tear. “I’m sorry. Talk in the town has already started. The bar was full tonight. On a Wednesday,” she says. When she gave birth, she bought the town bar and vamped it up. I never asked her how she got the money or what she had to do for it. I don’t want to know. All I need to know is that she is the best mother there is, and Ethan thrives with both of his parents.

“Give it a couple of days,” I say. “Something else will happen, and then it’ll be old news.”

“It’s taken seven years for people to be nice to me.” She sits down on the couch. “Seven years for me to finally walk into the grocery store without being pointed at as the ‘harlot’ who stole you away from the town’s princess.”

“The only thing that matters is that the town loves Ethan,” I remind her. “How they feel about me or you is not an issue.”

She puts her head back. “Yeah, I know. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page,” she says, getting up. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

She walks to me. “He has a spelling test tomorrow. Just go over the words in the car.”

“Will do,” I say, and she leans up to kiss my cheek.

“Thank you,” she says and walks out of the house. I walk out the door and watch her drive away. Stopping in the middle of my porch, I sit down and look at the sky.

“What the hell are you doing back in town, Kallie?” I ask the universe, and I expect to get an answer, but instead, all I hear is the silence. It’s always the silence that greets me.

Chapter Six

Kallie

I toss and turn in bed even though I’m exhausted and fell asleep five minutes after getting out of my shower. I wake suddenly and just lie here, my heartbeat going through the motions, just as it has been for the past eight years.

My room has stayed the same since I left, the only things gone are the pictures I had of me and Jacob all over my room. I don’t even think about all the times he climbed into my bed after my parents were asleep and just held me. Memories that I locked away and somehow forgot now come crashing back, making it hard for me to breathe. I get up, sitting at the end of the bed, trying to collect my breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. I get up and go to my luggage that sits open on the floor, looking like it just exploded everywhere. I refuse to wear any of the clothes I left here. I left them here for a reason, so there is no way I’m going to put them on now. In fact, I’m packing them up tomorrow and taking them to the church so they can give them away.

I pull on my yoga pants and put on a sweater. Sliding open my door, I slowly wait for the creak that used to come when it opened halfway. This time, it doesn’t make any noise as I slip out of my room and go down the stairs. The light in the kitchen is on like always, and a plate of muffins sits on the island right next to the vase of flowers. I walk over to the door and grab my running shoes. After I put them on, I slip out of the door and walk to the barn. I stop and listen for it, waiting to hear a car horn honk or backfire or a siren blaring somewhere, but instead, it’s nothing but crickets. The light from the stars leads me to the barn, and I slide the big metal door open, just like I used to do all those years ago when I couldn’t sleep.

The lights are on dim in each of the stalls as I walk down the concrete path in the middle of the barn. I hear the horses in their stalls as I make my way over to the one I know is mine. Lady Princess is written on the outside of the stall. She comes over to the opening, her brown coat still as bright as when I got her ten years ago. My