Timid (Lark Cove, #2)

by Devney Perry

I turned around slowly, facing my mother just as a boy emerged from the motel room. But he wasn’t just a boy. He was her kid.

left me to fend for myself at nine years old, then she’d had another son.

Mom threw her arm around his shoulders. “Yep. This is your big brother, Jackson.”

“So is he why you came to find me?”

She nodded. “Need you to take him for a while.”

My mother was disgusting. Simply...

She’d tracked me down after all these years to pawn off anoth...

“That ain’t your business either. But you either take him or he’s on his own.”

I’d come down to the motel for closure and hadn’t gotten any.

Instead, I’d gotten a twelve-year-old

old kid brother who would be living with m...

Willa’s entire frame shook with fury. “You need to get him away from her. She’s toxic.”

he didn’t seem surprised, just . . . disappointed.

How many times had she left him before?

After just a week, he was laughing and joking with Jackson and me like he’d known us his entire life.

The only time he’d clam up was when we asked about his past.

Why couldn’t my friends just be supportive? Why

did they always make me feel ridiculous and naïve?

He knew I wasn’t busy and he knew I would love to help Ryder. But he wasn’t even going to let me do that.

Jackson was pulling away from me before he made the clean break.

Jackson had all the weapons. He held my heart in the palm of his hand.

couldn’t demand that he fall in love with me. I couldn’t make him feel those things.

My boyfriend had left me alone in his bed only to come back hours later smelling like tequila and women’s perfume.

The time for my inevitable split with Willa was here.

I hadn’t been able to walk away from her, because I wanted her too much. I needed her too much.

guys are breaking up, aren’t you? I saw Willa crying the other morning in the kitchen.

So I took a deep breath, met her gaze and dove headfirst into a conversation I’d been dreading for weeks.

“We want different things.”

“Marriage. Kids.” “You don’t want to get married.”

“No, I don’t.” “Ever? Or just to me?”

“I just . . . don’t. I don’t want kids. I don’t want to get married. You do. End of story. End of us.”

“So that’s it?” I nodded. “That’s it.”

woman who’d given me the best summer of my life, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

This feeling was the reason I didn’t get close to people. This was the reason it was better to live alone.

She looked fierce and bold and beautiful. And she told me, “No.”

I don’t know how to love. What I do know is that people walk out more often than they stay.

don’t want to be the guy who walks out on his family. You

need someone you can depend on. T...

“So you’re worried you’re going to leave me and break my heart, yet here you are, leaving me and breaking my heart.

“I don’t know how to love you.”

“You love me and it scares you to death. Not because you’re worried that you’ll leave me.

But because you’re terrified I’ll leave you, just like everyone else has always done.”

“Do you love me?” Her question sent ice through my veins. Pure. Petrifying. Ice.

She was my courageous champion. My warrior. My lover. My friend.

“I love you, Jackson Page,” she whispered. “Don’t run away from me. Please.”

“Yes,” she panted. “I love you.”

“Again. Say it again.” Maybe if I heard it enough, I’d learn to say it back.

“I love you, Willa.” The words came easy. “Only you.”

Ever since he was a baby, she’d driven him from state to state, following whatever boyfriend she’d been with at the time.

“We lived there with Mom’s ex-boyfriend Christopher.”