Guilty Pleasure (Redemption #4) - Jessica Prince Page 0,1

moody, emo kid I’d been upon my arrival in Redemption. And she taught me to be strong enough to hold my head up and keep going when life continued to kick me in the gut after I was already down.

She was the closest thing I had to a parent since I lost my mom at six years old, so when I found out she was sick I didn’t even blink at the idea of uprooting my entire life to go back to a town I hated so I could help take care of her. Truthfully, there was nothing I wouldn’t do for my aunt.

“Yeah, you do,” Aurora said proudly. “And remember, I’m just a phone call away. If anyone’s mean to you, I’m on the first flight out there to kick some ass. Got it?”

“Got it,” I answered, feeling a million times lighter than I had only minutes ago. “Love you, sweetie.”

“Love you back, babe. Call me anytime for anything, yeah?”

“Yeah, Rora. Talk soon.”

I hit the button on my steering wheel to end the call just as the little light on my dash blinked to life, letting me know I’d rolled into town on fumes and needed to fill the gas tank.

I’d split the drive from Nebraska to Tennessee between two days, stopping in Missouri the night before to catch a few hours of sleep before starting the second leg. I’d hoped to blow through town and head straight for Sissy’s without stopping, but as bad of a driver as Aurora claimed I was—and that was the God’s honest truth—I was equally as bad at remembering to keep the tank from running bone dry.

Spotting the sign for a gas station, I turned into the lot, pulled up to one of the empty pumps, and killed the engine. I got out and swiped my card through the reader. As I pulled the nozzle out and slid it into my car’s tank, I felt a strange itching sensation on the back of my neck, an uncomfortable prickling that didn’t go away even after I lifted a hand and scratched at it.

My grip on the handle tightened as I glanced across the lot. My gaze immediately collided with a guy who was leaning against a big, jacked-up truck that screamed I have a tiny dick and this makes me feel like a man.

He was staring at me, not in a leering way, but almost as if he knew me, which was something I had really hoped wouldn’t happen, at least not so damn soon.

I’d changed a lot over the past several years. My hair was much longer now, and I’d had my stylist add lowlights to make the naturally-light blonde a few shades darker. I’d also taken up running and yoga as a way to de-stress, so I was a good few pounds lighter and leaner than I’d been back in the day. But the man’s focus stayed pinned on me, the color in his cheeks leeching out slowly, making the skin beneath the patchy scruff on his cheeks a sickly shade of white.

I expected him to look away once he realized I’d caught him watching, but he didn’t. There was something about the guy’s beady eyes that banged around inside my skull. I cocked my head to the side and studied him like he was a specimen under a microscope. It took a few seconds for me to finally place him, especially considering how much he’d changed—and not in a good way—but once I did, my insides grew cold as the blood in my veins turned to ice.

Ronny Culpepper had been an on-again, off-again hookup of my cousin Rina’s when I’d lived here. Back then, I couldn’t understand why my cousin would want to associate with such a self-centered, raging asshole. Then again, she’d been a spoiled little brat who basically did whatever the hell she wanted with no concern whatsoever for the people she hurt in the process. They’d been two peas in a pod. Rina had been completely out of control and running wild, and there was nothing I—or anyone else, for that matter—could have said or done to pull her head out of her own ass. In her eyes, I’d been merely the stuck-up, bitchy cousin who was trying to control her, so I’d eventually stopped trying to help her out of her downward spiral.

For the first time in my life, I’d actually had something good, and I’d been determined to focus on that, not the ugliness swirling around