Read Online TIMBER: The Bad Boy's Baby by Frankie Love - Free Book Online

already called your parents and informed them,” Luke says coolly as I push open the car door.
    “Did you…?”
    Luke sneers, suddenly a man I can’t believe I ever considered spending my life with.
    “I told them I found you naked in the house of a man who claimed he’d had his way with you.”
    “That was my story to tell,” I whisper. My eyes fill with tears once more.
    I drag my bags from his car, not able to stand being there one more minute.
    Standing on the front porch of the house where was raised, I knock the door.
    My father answers, his face cold and stern.
    “You have shamed us all.” He berates me the moment I walk inside. He turns out the door, toward Luke’s car and I don’t say anything to him.
    What is there to say? He runs this house and I have humiliated the family name.
    My mother comes to the foyer, her eyes covered in the shadow of disappointment.
    “What have you done, Harper?” she asks, shaking her head.
    “I didn’t—” I fall into her arms. “I never meant to hurt anyone.”
    And I didn’t. I’m not going to apologize for last night, but no one else needs to be hurt as I try to mend what I have broken.
    “How will you ever find a husband now?” she asks as we embrace.
    “Mother, there must be more to life than that?” I ask, pulling away.
    Some of my siblings walk through the hall—James, Jonathan, Jessie, and Hope—heads bowed, not even looking at me.
    “Hi, James,” I say to my brother, who is two years younger than me. He’s my closest sibling in age; there’s a three boy, eight-year gap between my sister Hope and I.
    James doesn’t meet my eyes, and everyone walks to the schoolroom in the basement without a word to me.
    “Why won’t they look at me?” I ask Mother.
    “You have disgraced us, and must pray for forgiveness. Your father has required this of all of us.” She won’t meet my eyes, and shame runs deep though my veins.
    I can’t reconcile what happened with Jax this morning, the absolute ecstasy, with that I feel now.
    I see Father turning back to the house, and I can’t bear his fury.
    I take my things and walk to my room. Falling on my bed, I can’t imagine ever bowing my head in prayer. Repenting for being with the bad boy, Jax.
    I’m a fool.
    A fool now stuck in a house where I’m the bad girl.

10
    JAX
    B uck shows up at my cabin, telling me I need to come down to the bar, and for some reason I agree.
    It’s been four weeks since Harper left. I never learned her last name, her home address. And of course I didn’t. She was a one-night stand.
    But she hasn’t left my mind.
    The snow has melted, the promise of spring finally poking its way through the forest floor.
    As I follow Buck down the mountain in my own truck, I see a beautiful doe on the side of the road, her white spots pointing to her purity, her eyes alert, taking in the world as it passes.
    Once again, all I see is Harper.
    A tow truck came up the road a few days after last month’s snowstorm passed. They carried Harper’s little hatchback down the mountain and I knew that was that.
    I could have been a creeper, gone all stalker-mode in her car, rooted through her glove box, looking for an address, a phone number. But I resisted. She didn’t offer those things, and I could guess she’d gone back home to a family ready to lay it on her.
    I didn’t need to show up on her doorstep and get punched by an angry father.
    I stayed put.
    I’m no love-sick fool. We shared a night I’ll remember, but that’s all.
    At the bar, Buck hands me a can of Bud Light and we play a few game of pool with the regulars. Some women ask if I want to go somewhere to talk, and while Buck thinks it’s goddamned amazing having me as his wingman, I pass on the offers.
    I’m not ready to get into something with some girl who lives out in the sticks. There aren’t enough houses in these parts to keep my one night stands in order.
    When I did that back in the city, it got me in trouble with the