Excerpt

“HIS DADDY'S EYES

"What would have me do, Sara? Walk away and pretend it didn't happen?" he asked. His tone made her stop and look at him. She probably shouldn't have, though, because his earnestness moved her in a way she didn't want to acknowledge.

"What if he's not your son?"

"What if he is?"

The question echoed through her head with every pulse beat as she hurried toward the bookstore. He stopped her again before she could flee inside.

"I have to know, Sara. There's no way I could go through life without acknowledging my son. Never being a part of his life. Never holding him, watching him grow up. I couldn't live with myself if I just walked away."

 

BACK IN KANSAS

Bo cringed at the resignation in her tone.

"I'd kinda figured that might happen, which is why I didn't think you should get involved with someone like me," she said.

"Claudie, this has nothing to do-"

She didn't let him finish. "Bo, think about it. If this is enough to push you over the edge - after twenty years of sobriety, how long will I last?" Her mocking laugh hit him like a punch in the gut.

She freed the final button.

Bo swore. The glass slipped from his fingers, landing haphazardly in the sink. Whisky splashed everywhere - the smell a toxic flashback to the floor of a college bar where he once spent the night face down in his own vomit. Wiping his hand on his pants he started toward her just as she shrugged out of the chamois-soft shirt. It pooled at her feet.

"Oh, God, Claudie," Bo whispered, taking in her naked form. Beautiful. Breaktaking. And Bo couldn't have been more furious. "Put that back on."

"No."

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