Guilty Pleasure (Redemption #4) - Jessica Prince Page 0,2

my cousin, threatening to swallow up anyone who got too close.

I’d lived in a town I loved. I’d had an aunt I adored, friends I enjoyed spending time with, and I’d had Clay, the guy who held my heart in his hands. The cherry on top of all of that was he came with an incredible family.

The Morrisons had opened their arms to me and accepted me as one of their own almost from the moment Clay and I started dating. I was finally part of a family, something I’d never had before, and I’d been determined to cherish every second of every day.

Then everything had changed. One moment I’d been blissfully happy, and the next, my whole world had crashed down around me.

And the person who’d destroyed it was now standing only yards away.

For years I had imagined what I’d do if I ever saw Ronny again. In my head, I’d pictured myself confronting him in a highly dramatic fashion. I would demand to know why he’d spread lies about me and maybe even go so far as to punch him right in his smug face, hopefully hard enough to break his nose.

Now that the opportunity presented itself, I didn’t do any of those things. My feet felt like they were encased in cement. I couldn’t move. Hell, I could barely breathe as the two of us stood immobile, unable to tear our eyes off of each other.

The sound of a car door slamming shut rattled me out of my stupor. I blinked and shook my head, glancing toward the pump to see that it had clicked off at some point. My tank was full, and I hadn’t even noticed. By the time I had the gas cap screwed back into place, Ronny was in his truck and peeling away from the gas station.

“So much for a dramatic showdown,” I muttered, feeling the crushing weight of disappointment as I spun on my heel and climbed back into my car.

I started the engine and closed my eyes, counting to ten as I worked to regulate my breathing. Once I felt in control again, I hit the button on my phone so The Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy” would start blaring from the car’s speakers.

I bounced in my seat to the fast pace, loudly singing along with the words while I finished the trek to Sissy’s.

A wave of nostalgia crashed over me as I turned onto the gravel drive and her farmhouse came into view.

I’d missed this place tremendously. It was the first place that had ever felt like home to me. Leaving this house and my aunt seven years ago had been like tearing a piece of my heart and leaving it behind, and as I came to a stop in front of the aging wrap-around porch, I felt that piece fuse itself back in place.

I rounded the hood and stopped on the passenger side, placing my hands on my hips and looking up at the house while inhaling deeply, pulling all the familiar scents of the land and the animals around it into my chest and holding them there for a few seconds. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth as I ran my gaze along every inch of the old place. Happy memories from my time here bombarded me, pushing back all the darkness that had come with seeing Ronny Culpepper again.

The screen door creaked loudly on its hinges, yanking my focus back to the porch just as my aunt appeared.

“Well, aren’t you the best sight ever for these old eyes!”

I wanted to say the same to her, but the words died on my tongue and a knot formed in my throat when I got my first good look at her. It took everything I had not to burst into tears.

She looked frail and tired, so different from the full-of-life woman I remembered. I could see the pain etched into the lines of her face as well as into the way she held her body, like every single thing hurt—which it probably did.

My aunt had been suffering for a long time now but her pride and independent nature hadn’t allowed her to slow down or reach out for help until things finally got to be too bad. Before she’d bitten the bullet and gone to the doctor, her pain and fatigue had gotten so bad she’d barely been able to function. She’d ignored it until she literally couldn’t anymore. The diagnosis of multiple sclerosis had been a