Page 10 of Jensen

Fuck Holly.

Fuck Kentucky.

And most of all, fuck Brothers Boyd.

CHAPTER THREE

DELLA

FIVE YEARS AGO

AGE EIGHTEEN

It’s spring, and I’m going to miss it this year.

I’m standing in the doorway of the only home I’ve ever had. Leland let me spend my last night here before the wedding. It was a long argument.Why do you want to stay out there? I have a hotel booked for you.But my husband-to-be doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want to understand me. He wants obedience.

A car is coming to get me soon. I have a few minutes to gather my overnight bag. Then, I have to walk down the dirty path to the gravel road, and I’ll never live in this valley again.

My heart hurts. My eyes are dry from crying until past midnight.

Stepping outside, I shade my eyes even though the sun hasn’t cut through the mountains yet. My little holler, deep in the mountains,always stays cool and shaded. The creek never dries up. I hear it bubbling at the bottom of the hill. If I walk all the way down the road, the mountains pull back, and everything is dusty and dry. But here, it’s a little rainforest tucked away.

At the edge of the road, I close my eyes. The air is soft, warm, with a hint of coolness. I tilt my head and inhale—blossoms and greenery. Deep inside, I feel that flutter reminding me I’m not alone. My hand moves instinctively to my belly, where Leland’s baby grows. A baby I never wanted, because now, I’m tied to him forever.

Leland Caudill is a criminal, a refined one who will never get caught because he’s friends with the judges and police. But he and his family are the worst of the worst, loaded up with money from pills, rigged races, and other things he’ll never speak out loud. I’m the unfortunate girl from Harlan County who got stuck waiting his table at the diner one day while he was passing through on a job from his father.

A tear escapes. I let it run.

I wasn’t supposed to leave home. Hell, I’d have been happy living in the holler until they buried me in my family plot over the crest of the hill, but Leland is making me live in a house outside Lexington so he can turn me into something I’m not. I’ll raise his son for him, be the perfect little mob wife. When it’s my time, they’ll put me in a big cemetery with no real family to keep me company.

Down the lane, a plume of dust rises. The shiny grate of an SUV appears.

My time is up.

Ducking inside, I gather my things and shove them into my bag. Then, I stand in the doorway as the car pulls up. I don’t smile when the driver opens the door. Today, I’m grumpy and pregnant. My stomach is starting to show, at twenty-five weeks. He wanted to marry me before, but I took a lot of convincing. It wasn’t until it sunk in that he was going to have me whether I liked it or not that I gave in.

No one says no to the Caudills.

I bite my cheek, lock the door, and climb into the SUV. The driver is a Caudill soldier, in a black suit and sunglasses. He gives me a curt nod as he pulls onto the road, ignoring my scowl. The backseat is shiny leather and smells like fresh paint. I sit in the middle awkwardly. There’s no warmth here.

I stare out the window as the mountains fall away and the land grows flatter. Growing up, at our tiny high school, I was voted the funniest student. I might not have all the fancy education as Leland, but I can be quick. I’ve read every book I can get my hands on. I’ve devoured all the shows and movies. The principal even tried to get me to apply to college. I said no, knowing Mama would never be able to scrape together the money for a bus ticket, much less tuition.

Then, Leland came.

And I think my light might be dying.

I start peeling the skin back from my thumbnail at the thought of Leland. He says I need to stop using phrases he doesn’t know. Why can’t I put on a fucking pair of shoes once in a while? He says those things with a smile, like it’s a joke, but it’s not.

“You have a beautiful body, Della,” he says sometimes. “I’ll take you to buy better clothes for it.”

I wear clothes from the salvage thrift shop. Big shirts with logos I don’t recognize, basketball shorts, and slides from the dollar shop. We never had money. My mother worked the deli counter at the grocery store and had too much pride to accept charity. So, we made do.

Of course, the day I met Leland, I was wearing something different. That day, I put on a sundress on a whim. It was a tiny, cotton thing that always got me double the tips. He must have liked that, because he was knocking on my door days later.

I should have stuck to t-shirts and shorts. My mama likes to joke that dress broke the poverty cycle for future Cooleys. We were damned in her eyes. Then, in walked Leland, and now she’s got a fancy house looking out over the river waiting for her after this wedding. That’s the only good part. My mama worked hard afterDaddy died. Maybe this is a sacrifice I need to make to pay back my debt.

I’m a little sick by the time we pull up outside the Caudill Mansion. The Caudills are Catholics, but the Cooleys have always been Baptist, so we compromised on which church to get married in and decided to hold it at the enormous mansion where I’ll live with Leland.