1. Prologue - Kim

Prologue - Kim

May 1st

A knot of tension sat heavy in my stomach all day.

At first, I thought maybe it was to do with the kids, since they were both out doing their own thing. Then, I wondered if Tripp was okay.

KIM: Weird feeling all day. You good?

A few minutes later his reply came with a photo of himself and Mack working on a Harley in the garage.

TRIPP: All good here, babe. You need me to come home?

KIM: No. Probably just about to start my period or something.

I knew the excuse was me trying to blow off the twisty feeling I had in my gut since there didn't seem to be a feasible cause. Still, it would keep him from rushing home or worrying.

TRIPP: Thanks for the head's up. I'll bring chocolate and rum when I head home later.

"Something doesn't feel right," I mumbled to myself after reading his last text. In an effort to take my mind off the horrible feeling, I sat down in front of my laptop and started going through the pictures I'd taken of Star and her friend, Ashlynn, the other day. The little divas thought they were both the next up-and-coming models and popped poses that made my eyes roll. Still, it had been fun to play around with them, especially since my baby girl would officially be a teenager in just one week.

It was difficult to think about where the time had gone. Kip had just turned fifteen in March and already asked his dad for an upgrade to the dirt bikes he rode on our property. It wouldn't be much longer before our kids would be full grown. Tripp had been promising me a vacation around the world once they were out of the house, and I planned on holding him to his promise.

Every time I pictured the two of us trapsing around the globe it made me chuckle to think of how differently we'd look by then. We still had at least eight years before it was possible, and my old man was already going gray in the beard. It was early for him to have gray hair, but apparently it was genetic happenstance to gray early in his family. I'd say poor Kip, but the silver fox look never seemed to go out of style. My boy would probably end up rocking it early like his dad.

Over our mantel hung a picture I'd taken at Sturgis three years earlier. Mack had stayed home with the kids because he was still doing physical therapy for his leg. An exhausted trucker fell asleep at the wheel and nearly took him out. My brother's quick thinking and perfect reflexes were the only reason he came away with a broken leg instead of being hit head-on by the eighteen-wheeler.

Still, as much as I wanted to hurt people for how overworked and over-tired truck drivers always were, thanks to a broken system and time/pay imbalances, the near tragedy allowed us that perfect week together. The picture was one some club girl took for me while using my camera. The girl was long gone from the club, but the picture remained a favorite memory. Tripp and I stood in a small circular patch of trampled down grass surrounded by motorcycles.

The way he looked at me always felt like seeing complete and utter devotion in print and the smile on my face never failed to make my heart flutter with the memory of that moment. I felt the most pure, honest, love for Tripp when that picture was taken, and it came through loud and clear in the print. It had been the first time in years we were able to get away together and it was sorely needed at the time.

That week brought us closer after months of us drifting a bit. Marriage was never easy. Despite the love we had for our children, they made it even more difficult as we lost time with one another to manage the kids' schedules. We didn't have real problems. No one was stepping out, our finances were fine, we were just missing each other and in doing so, managed to push a little further away after every disappointment.

That week in Sturgis was a tipping point, one where we vowed to take more time for one another. It was just as important to dedicate those moments to ourselves, for our children, as it was to be there for them. Without that balance, we drifted. In the three years since, we managed to make our relationship a priority again and we'd never been happier as a result.

The anxiety that was eating me up inside didn't abate as I took that walk down memory lane. Instead, it increased as the day moved on. Tripp would be home soon, and then I'd tell him about my little run-in with his ex-girlfriend this morning. Honestly, seeing her earlier in the day was probably the reason for my anxiousness.

I'd taken some photos to the newspaper, and on the way out, I accidentally bumped into someone. When I looked up, the woman seemed familiar, but her garish red locks and pursed-face stare didn't register at first.

"You!" The woman growled at me. I took a step back, so that I had room to maneuver because the threat of violence in her voice couldn't be mistaken for anything else.

"You still haven't gotten what's coming to you after all these years, have you? I would have thought Tripp would have buried your ass in a swamp somewhere by now, but I guess your brother is still protecting you."

I glared at the hateful woman, and it still wasn't clicking until the woman beside her laughed. "Damn, the red hair must be throwin' her, June. She has no clue who you are."

The other woman, a blonde and far better looking, if life hadn't aged her so harshly, had finally clued me in as to who the hell was standing in the lobby of the newspaper talking shit about me.

June fucking Hargrove, Tripp's ex-girlfriend from high school.

"You're really brave standing here threatening me, especially when I didn't even recognize who the fuck you were. That's how little you mean to us. We don't think about you, sweetheart. Don't concern ourselves with your whereabouts and what have you. You do not register on our radar at all. You haven't since the day Tripp kissed you in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot and realized it didn't even compare to what he had with me.

"And honey, if I'm being honest, one of the club whores would have been better than you for that man. Poor guy didn't even know what it felt like when a woman had a real orgasm because you were so grossed out by sex. Now that I think about it, he did complain about you once. It was when he told me that you couldn't take the full length of him without complaining and making him back out again. Sad, really, that you thought your pathetic ass could keep a man when you didn't give or receive oral, and then couldn't even take a dick by your own idiotic request." I looked at her friend then, "My old man is a God when it comes to oral," I explained. "She was missing out."

Despite wanting to rip her over-processed red hair out at the roots, I walked away after that leaving them both gaping and speechless. The smile on my face was indication enough of the satisfaction I'd received from our little encounter. No one could blame her for still being hung up on Tripp. He was a catch, and unfortunately for June, she'd fumbled her chance with him. As I'd stated, she hadn't been all that satisfactory in the bedroom department because she was a prude.

Looking at who her parents were, there was no doubt she came by that honestly, but still, you would think the woman would be over the man who was so far out of her league she hadn't realized it, even then. She always thought she was the better half of them when they were coupled up, simply because her family came from wealth. The bitch had been wrong, and she'd lost the best man in the world as a result.

I wouldn't cry for her loss because it was definitely my gain. Tripp and I had been happily married for a long time and we had two beautiful children to show for it. Our son might have been conceived accidentally, but our daughter had been planned.

Like I said, we'd been happy since he chose to devote himself to me and not her. There was never a day when I doubted his love for me and the feelings in my heart for my old man only grew with each day we spent together.

My family was my everything.

By the time I got back home, after running all my errands, that impending doom feeling started to set in. It had nothing to do with being insecure where June was concerned. There was just something in the air beyond the thick, humid heat that seemed to suck the energy right out of me. It was almost always warm in South Georgia, but it had been exceptionally, and unseasonably so, all day. I'd been sweating like a whore in church by the time I got into the house.

I glanced back up at the photograph of my old man smiling down at me just as I heard glass shatter in the kitchen. There wasn't even time for me to take two steps in that direction to see what caused the noise before something connected hard with my head and I went down in a sea of blackness. The last image I processed was a swath of crude red impeding my vision of the picture I'd been staring at moments ago.