Page 116

Jessamy shifted, and then the breath left my body.

Because there was my girl.

All grown up.

My breath hitched, my eyes stung, and my heart hammered.

For over a decade, I’d begged and pleaded with whatever god that there was that they’d bring her back to me.

And there she was.

The first tear dropped.

She was so. Goddamn. Beautiful.

Like looking into the sun.

So bright that you had to squint.

“Shelly, get in the car,” Marcia ordered fiercely.

Shelly.

Did she change her name?

“Shelby,” Shelby corrected. “I’ve gone by that stupid name for years, and I’ve always hated it. I’ve told you that I hate it. And now I really know why you wanted to hide me. You made me go by names that weren’t mine. You made me dye my hair, though you worded it as a suggestion and saying how ‘it’d be so cool.’ We moved so much that I couldn’t even begin to tell you all the places that we’ve lived. And for what? So you could hide me from my father? A father that you told me died?”

Silence.

God, she sounded like an adult.

And it was like everything crashed down at once.

I’d missed…everything.

She was all grown up now, and I couldn’t go back.

The second tear dropped.

Marcia leaned forward, her hand on the gate. “It’s electric. I wouldn’t do that.”

Jessamy’s low words barely containing the boiling anger within.

Marcia sniffed, as if she didn’t expect an electric fence, and thought she was just blowing smoke up her ass.

But I knew it to be true, because I’d gotten a little shock of my own when I’d tested the security one day last week.

It was solid.

And shocked the absolute piss out of me with just a finger touch.

I watched Marcia slam her hands down, as if she was trying to prove a point, and nearly guffawed when she all but threw herself away from the fence and screeched.

“I told you that it was electrified,” Jessamy said with zero inflection in her voice.

“Mom,” Shelby said. “It’s time to go.”

My hands itched to pull her into my arms, but somehow I restrained myself.