Forsaken Read Online Free PDF Page B

thrilled about the broken glass, but the fresh air and the smell of home worked wonders for his peace of mind. He’d been gone far too long—he still would be gone if his brother hadn’t asked to meet him that afternoon. And if Gage hadn’t agreed, Billy would still be alive.
    Gage sure as hell hadn’t come back for this.
    Riley left him for Colt. He knew it, and he didn’t care to revisit the emotions hidden behind that particular closed door of his past—probably not any more than she did. But if anyone else in the world would know how to get in Oren Beckett’s safe, it was Colt.
    And the bastard better have answers, because the list of people who could have stolen the gun was only four letters long—each one written in Billy’s blood.
    Gage wasn’t one to sniffle over his emotions, but he felt them all the same. He and Billy hadn’t been close—adolescence had taken them in vastly different directions—but the loss ripped at his foundation. Gage had precisely two portions of his life that mattered: the early years spent raising prepubescent hell with Billy, and the couple of years he had with Riley before he’d managed to kill her parents. For two broken pieces of his past to collide like this was more than a blow…it was a mockery of his life.
    A sideways glance told him Riley wasn’t faring much better. She twisted her hands in her lap—a constant shuffle threatening to rattle his nerves—and stared out the window with a bit more concentration than near pitch darkness required. He knew the feeling, the search for distraction. He’d lived it a year ago after he said goodbye to Oren and Evelyn Beckett, an unwelcome outsider skirting the back of a double graveside crowd whose numbers rivaled the town’s entire population.
    A day later, he had buried himself. Wanted to crawl out of his own skin and forget what he’d done and how much he’d hurt everyone. To be anyone or anywhere else when Riley left to be with Colt.
    “Colt didn’t do this.”
    Gage turned his head from the road to see the gorgeous lines of her profile, nearly hidden by waves of dark hair.
    She didn’t look his way.
    He sighed and turned his attention to the road. “I know you love him, but you don’t know—”
    “No, really.” Her voice was firm. “He’s paralyzed from the neck down. He didn’t do this.”
    Gage snapped shut his mouth. A year before, Colt left the scene of the accident in an ambulance, and unlike the one waiting for Oren and Evelyn, his took off in a hurry. As far as Gage knew, once Colt left the hospital, he had never returned to their hometown of Barefoot. Gage assumed the change in venue had been Colt’s way of sidestepping the memories—hell, it had been Gage’s own excuse—but under the circumstances, the assessment now seemed cruel.
    “He could have hired someone,” Gage said.
    “No. He wouldn’t do that.”
    Even from the corner of his eye, the stubborn set of her jaw warned against his going further. He continued anyway, knowing damn well opening his mouth would be akin to tiptoeing on landmines. “You also knew nothing would come between us. Remember that? And I bet all those times you let me make love to you, you never considered I might wipe your family off the map. Loss changes people. So unless you know who has that gun, I suggest you stop defending the only man who could know.”
    He was genuinely surprised the driver’s side window didn’t crack under the scathing look he received in response. Regret crept through the frustration. “Riley—”
    “Don’t.” She turned to her window, leaving him with a view of the back of her head.
    A hint of the sugary scent of her shampoo—inexplicably not lost through the gaping hole across the rear of the cab—railroaded him. He slowed to a stop at an intersection, wondering if she’d bail on him. Not wanting to give her more of an opportunity, he questioned whether he should take the time to fish the phone out from under the seat.