Read Online Love Life & Circumstance by V. L. Moon, J. T. Cheyanne - Free Book Online Page A

Why didn’t you just pull over?”
    The girl deflated before their eyes. “I didn’t know what to do.”
    “How about not drinking and driving or deciding not to ram a parked car.” Seth bit out.
    “I was going to stop when the police hit their lights. Bethany flipped; said she had marijuana in her purse. She screamed at me to floor it. I’d almost convinced her we needed to stop when she saw his truck. Deacon & Son emblazoned on the door. She stomped on the gas, broke my little toe.” She gestured wildly at her foot. “She grabbed the wheel and yanked it to the right. We were going so fast, I couldn’t do anything.” A sob tore free from the girl. “She went through windshield because she didn’t have on her seat belt. I could see her hanging there and I couldn’t move. The air bag and my seatbelt…” Her voice dwindled into quiet sobs.
    A pit yawned in Seth’s stomach. The wreck was Bethany’s fault. She’d deliberately rammed Deacon’s truck. He swallowed bile as he staggered to his feet. “I need…”
    He passed Elijah and hurried through the door in the back of the room. Without his usual manners, he shoved through the masses of people in the foyer and stumbled through a side exit in search of fresh air. Blindly, he wandered the grounds, his mind churning with Carrie’s claims. His sister was responsible for a man’s death, and not just any man, her child’s grandfather. The full ramifications of Carrie’s story punched a hole in his chest.  Hope. She had a father, a man that could take her away from him.  A man, like him, with no other kin in the world. He needed to get to the hospital. He needed to see her, his last link to his sister.
    “I think we need to talk.” Elijah emerged from the darkness. Seth jerked to a halt and lifted his head. Dressed in a light gray suit with a white button down shirt and crimson tie, the man looked like he could have stepped from the pages of GQ. Seth studied him for a moment before nodding.
    “Yeah, I suppose we do. I was fixin’ to head to the hospital. Guess I could meet you after.”
    “Sounds good. My place again?” Seth nodded, knowing he had no choice. Elijah turned and re-entered the building, but Seth couldn’t face all those people again. He wandered around front and climbed into the Rover. The engine turned over easily and within seconds, he was on his way back to the hospital.
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    CHAPTER NINE
     
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    Elijah felt as though the rug had just been pulled from under his feet. Numb from shock, he returned to the room where a constant stream of guests still paid their last respects at his father’s casket. Ignoring their looks of remorse and pity, Elijah scanned through the mill of old familiar faces, seething with fury when his gaze eventually landed on its designated target. His anger intensified, turning the blood in his veins cold with hate. Chief Bussey stood at the head of Chamberlain Deacon’s casket, his head bowed in true remorse for the sudden loss of his lifelong friend. He looked up as though he sensed Elijah’s approach and his usual ruddy complexion significantly paled.
    Elijah barely refrained from seizing the police chief and teaching him a lesson in how to eat dirt. Instead, he looked down on the lifeless form of his father and couldn’t help but feel bitter disgust for his treachery against his own son. “How could you preach the Lord’s word when all the time you were hiding the truth from your own flesh and blood? How could you look me in the face every God damn day knowing what you knew?”  His huge hands curled into heavy threatening fists as his eyes flickered up to meet the shocked expression on Bussey’s face.
    “And as for you…I oughta teach you a lesson you’ll never forget, you Godforsaken motherfucker. You ever dare show that face by my home again, and the gators will think it’s the God damn Fourth of July ya hear.” Bussey swallowed