What Lies Beneath (Count on Me Series #7) Read Free Page B

that you showed it to me. Wanted to share that part of yourself. I just meant that I really didn’t want to read it.”
    Where I thought her words would offer some clarity in the confusion of the moment, it only seems to make it worse.
    “Okay, I’m lost. If you don’t want to read it, then what do you want?”
    “Easy.” She bounces back on the sofa, pulling the book from the arm and handing it over with a smile. “I want you to read it to me.”
    She what?
    “You said this was a story you wrote when you were a kid, right? And that it was about me. So who better to read it to me than the author? Tell me your story, Kayden.”
    So after a minute of studying her, looking for any sign that she’s only doing what she thinks I might want, and finding nothing but glowing eyes, a bright smile and the overwhelming peacefulness that comes from the love we share, I do what she asks.
    I open the book to the second entry and I do it.
    I tell her a story.
    “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived this beautiful princess and a beast determined to slay her.”
    Flinching when her elbow connects hard with my side, I swallow down the urge to drop an F-bomb, turning my attention instead to the laugh that escapes and the eye roll I’ve earned that quickly follows.
    “I’m pretty sure if you’re going for accuracy here, Kay, it’s the princess that slays the beast.”
    It was supposed to be a joke, starting off like this. Mainly because I already know what the second entry in the book is about and I’m sweating balls over here worried about how she’s going to react when I read it.
    Before senior year, nothing about my life was fairy-tale worthy. I guess I just want to keep things light for as long as I can. Exposing myself is the easy part. Exposing my girl to the pits of hell that were the parts without her in it? Not so much.
    She’s got a point though. She is the princess and she did slay the beast.
    “You’re right. How insensitive of me. Let me start again.”
    As I part my lips to repeat the joke, her finger coming to rest across my lip stops me.
    “You’re stalling. Which means whatever comes next in this story of yours is probably something that’s going to make me cry.”
    Nailed it.
    “Do you read everyone else this well or do you save it all for me?”
    Lifting her hand, she waves it before dropping it, flashing me the most adorable smile in the process. She’s not the only one with the ability to read people. Like now, without so much as a word, I know she means it can go both ways.
    “You’re right. This story isn’t just about you. It’s about me too, and there wasn’t a whole lot of good on my end.”
    “Is this about Dean or your dad?”
    Even though I’ve spent the last couple of years making sporadic visits to the prison in order to see my brother, attempting the same way I did with my mom at letting him in despite everything that’s happened between us, he’s still a sore subject.
    The wounds still as raw as they were when I went through them.
    “Most of the memories I can pull up are Dean, but this one, I blocked it out as best I could. It’s the one memory I’ve tried my hardest to forget. It’s my dad.”
    Dad isn’t a word I’d use for the man that beat my mother, Dean and me within an inch of our lives every damn chance he got. That name is reserved for a man with a stern hand but softer heart. One that wouldn’t dream of putting his hands on a woman or his children in any way other than love.
    The kind of man that despite the way I was raised, I hope in the future I can be.
    For Belle and our children.
    Holy shit.
    It’s not the first time I’ve thought about my future, but it is the first time that sitting here with her, with my past damn near burning a hole in my lap, I’ve been able to picture kids.
    Mini versions of ourselves running around. The boys acting like me and creating all kinds of shit, while the girls—who in my mind look exactly like their