Now or Never by Jamie Canosa Read Free Book Online Page A

whisper, but those two words echoed through the room. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Em. I’m so sorry.” He continued to back away as he spoke. One foot behind the next, never looking where he was going, but he made it to the front door.
    He paused there, shaking his head , and Em’s heart thumped in her chest. She couldn’t let him leave. Not like this.
    “Jay, where are you going?” He just kept shaking his head like he couldn’t believe any of this was real. “Jay, please. You’re scaring me.”
    “You should be scared!” With that he turned and disappeared out the door, slamming it shut behind him before she could think of another word to say.
    Jay was gone. He was gone. He left. The thought held Em immobile until she heard the sound of the truck starting up in the driveway. Hauling herself to her feet, she raced to the front door, but by the time she threw it open all she saw wa s the tailgate disappearing in a cloud of fresh fallen powder.
    Em stood there for a long time, staring down the road like she expected him to come to his senses and turn around. He didn’t.
    The sun was slipping behind dark clouds that promised more snow in the near future when the sound of the smoke alarm drew her back inside. Black smoke wafted from the oven. Using a dish rag to fan the alarm, Em pulled out a dozen blackened biscuits.
    After tossing them in the trash and opening a window to air out the room, she sat on the couch to wait. She’d just wait. Jay would come back. He’d get his head together and then he’d come home to her. Everything was going to be fine. It was just one of those bumps in the road. They’d weathered plenty of those. This was no different. It couldn’t be. She’d just wait.

 
     
    Chapter Nine
     
     
    Jay
     
    He’d hurt her.
    Hit her.
    Em.
    His Em.
    Jay couldn’t get the image of her lying on the kitchen floor, a red mark marring her cheek , from his mind. He’d done that to her. There wasn’t enough road in the world for him to drive to leave that thought behind, but he tried. He just kept driving. No particular destination in mind. Windows down, radio blaring. Nothing helped.
    His one purpose in this life was to take care of that girl. Protect her. But what if he was the one she needed protection from? What if there was something wrong with him? Something spoiled? Something rotten deep down? Something he’d inherited? Or acquired? How could he protect her from the monster living in her own house? Sleeping in her own bed?
    ‘It was an accident.’ That’s what Em said. And it was, wasn’t it? He hadn’t meant to hurt her. He’d never hurt her. But the fact remained, he had. The awful image of Em morphed. Her dark hair lightened to a pale blonde. She grew taller and heavier, and her face . . . His mother’s face stared back at him, wide-eyed and frantic.
    “It was just an accident, Jay. Just an accident. He didn’t mean it.”
    Was that his and Em’s future? His parents couldn’t have always been the way he remembered them. They must have loved each other, once. Before everything went to shit. How had it started? With a lost temper? A bad day? An honest accident?
    However it started, it always ended the same. Fists, belts, golf clubs . . . it didn’t matter. She made the same damn excuses every time. Jay had made them, too. For years. He’d just never been fool enough to convince himself of them before. And he wasn’t going to start now. Accident or not, there was no excuse for what he’d done to Em.
    On top of all that, he was back. That ham fisted asshole had laid his hands on Em. Not in any violent way, but enough to give Jay the unshakable image. She was working tooth and nail every day to claw her way out of her own pile of shit, and now she was about to get buried in a whole new pile of his. She didn’t deserve that. She deserved a better life. A good life. The life he’d promised her. The life he’d failed to provide for her.
    Em was worthy of someone who could