Shotgun Ridge by Mindy Neff

Author:Mindy Neff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2013-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

“IF YOU CAN’T HIT any harder than that, then you’re in deep trouble and I’m wasting my time.”

After four days of the same grueling routine, coupled with Grant’s surliness, Abbe had finally had enough.

She flopped onto the mat in his state-of-the-art gym and refused to move. He could stand there holding that stupid punching bag for the rest of the week for all she cared.

By God, she was proud of the slight definition that was developing in her arms. And the tightening of her abs made her look damn hot when she wore her low-rise jeans. She could splatter a watermelon at fifty paces with a handgun, or turn a plastic water jug into a fountain, and every once in a while, she could flip Grant onto the floor by design instead of by luck.

Yet the more she progressed, the more he demanded of her.

His criticism wasn’t helping her morale at all. Every morning she woke up wondering if this would be the day that evil found her. She constantly tortured herself by imagining how few hours she might have left to hold her daughter in her arms, to smell the sweet scent of baby shampoo clinging to silky-fine hair. To listen to the happy sound of childish giggles and belly laughs. To marvel over the teeny-tiny white teeth. To look into the mischievous green eyes so like her own.

Dear God, she loved Jolene more than she’d ever thought possible to love another human being.

Anguish over the uncertainty surrounding their lives was ripping her insides to shreds. She’d come to Shotgun Ridge with a nebulous hope of finding an ally, of not being alone, of having someone who would understand the depth and validity of her fears.

Yet the man she’d pinned her hopes on was treating her like something loathsome.

And it was beginning to exact a toll she no longer wanted to pay.

“How long are we going to keep this up?” she asked, directing her question at the twelve-foot ceiling.

“As long as it takes.”

She shifted her head against the vinyl mat, stared at him, then sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Well, I’ve decided this sourpuss attitude of yours is over. Barking orders and acting as though I’m a contagious disease isn’t going to make me a better kung fu fighter or shoot- ’em-up girl. My grandma always said—cliché as it may be—that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

“You can catch them with shit, too, which is what you’re up against, darlin’.”

To her absolute horror, tears welled in her eyes before she could even try to stop them.

Grant started to turn away, then froze, his gut twisting. He nearly snapped at her to turn off the waterworks, but he saw what the vulnerability cost her. Despite her delicate features and uptown-girl persona, she wasn’t the type of woman who used tears to get attention or have her way.

He’d put her through hell these past four days, and other than peppering him with questions and vocalizing her very definite opinions, she hadn’t complained.

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