“Now, I’ve been getting close to filing bankruptcy way too many times because I’ve been paying for this child when Jagger should have been, and it’s time he paid for it. So give me what I need, and if Jagger finds out about this, I swear to you I will be gone with that child faster than you can destroy another wedding attempt.”

My chest ached at her words, and I once again couldn’t understand how she could be so evil. She’d fooled everyone, and I wondered if Jagger knew about this side of her. But I was positive he couldn’t know, he would’ve told me if he had, and I knew for sure then that I had been right in not telling him about his mother. Not because she needed help financially, but because of this ugly side of her personality. I knew it would break Jagger’s heart if he learned about it.

This was definitely my time to do the protecting. Jagger’s mom needed to be stopped, and I needed to figure out a way to save Keith from her. If he was Jagger’s son, then Jagger deserved to know, and get the chance to raise him. But that chance would never come if Mrs. Easton took off with Keith, and taking off was what she was best at next to finding husbands.

“I don’t have three thou—”

“Then give me two, or I’m gone.”

I wanted to say I didn’t have two, but I was afraid she’d know I was lying—and I was even more terrified that she would make good on her threat. I just need to buy myself time with her. Looking up at her, I tried to compose myself so she wouldn’t know how much this conversation was killing me. “Fine. My shift is almost over. I’ll give you the check when I leave.”

“You’re a smart girl, Grey.” Without another word, she walked past me and out of the shop. I didn’t move until I heard the door shut. Then, in a fog, I made my way back behind the counter.

Thankfully there were only about ten minutes left of my shift, no new customers came in, and none of the customers needed anything else, so I was able to slowly pull myself together before I walked outside to see Mrs. Easton again. I’d written the check before leaving the back room, so all I did was hand it to her and then continue the short walk to my car.

“You did the right thing, honey,” she called after me, but I didn’t respond. I just got into my car and drove to the lake.

Not getting out of my car, I stared out at our favorite dock and the lake. The sun had turned the water into a sheet of gold, and I stared, mesmerized by it, until the colors began shifting. For the longest time, my only thoughts were of the water, but as I watched the sun set, my mind started drifting to the things I’d been trying so hard to block out.

Jagger had a son; he was a father and he didn’t even know it. If it weren’t for Mrs. Easton’s threats of taking off with Keith, I didn’t think I’d have been able to keep something of this magnitude from him. I’d already known that Mrs. Easton left town on a regular basis, but I also knew that she always came back. But after what I’d found out about her today? After she’d revealed a side of her no one had probably ever seen—a side she’d hidden so perfectly . . . I would never put anything past her again.

Jagger’s a father, I thought to myself as my stomach roiled, and LeAnn’s the mom. The girl who made the last two years of high school a living hell for anyone close to Jagger. The girl who slept with any man willing to give the town whore a few minutes of his time. The girl who’d been breaking into the warehouse, torturing Jagger and me, and hacking into Ben’s old Facebook account. The girl we now had a restraining order against.

My head dropped back against the headrest, and I let out a pained cry as I took everything in. The deceit, the tormenting, and the pain. Jagger and I hadn’t talked about having kids; it just wasn’t something that had come up between us yet. Our focus had been on each other and on a future in which we were always together, and nothing else. But knowing he already had a son with another girl was breaking my heart. I felt like LeAnn had taken something special from Jagger and me, and couldn’t help but wonder how Jagger would react . . . when he found out.

I felt beaten down. There was always something, and it seemed like life never let us have more than a few seconds to breathe, and just be happy. I had thought my biggest challenge with moving back to Thatch would be finding a way to survive in a town where there were so many memories and heartaches. I’d thought the difficulties would include my family getting used to seeing me and not worrying that they were going to hurt my feelings if they mentioned Ben, and finding something to keep me busy now that school was over; I didn’t want to be one of those people who just sat around wallowing in grief.

There was no way I could’ve imagined all of this, or prepared for it. And I had no idea how to get through it now.

But I knew that for Jagger I would somehow find a way to get through it. I knew I would do everything to find out the truth and figure out a safe way to tell Jagger. And I knew that we would find a way to get past this, just as we had with all the other problems that had come at us. We’d been through too much in the last two and a half years not to.

Jagger

October 18, 2014

“YOU’RE INSANE. BURGERS are the only thing that should be ordered here.”

I let the menu fall onto the table between Graham and me, and pushed it toward him. “They have a ton of other food for a reason. You’re supposed to try it.”

“Their burgers are famous,” he argued, and I rolled my eyes.

“Have you ever even tried anything else?”