Read Online Unforgiven by Elizabeth Finn - Free Book Online

woman was waiting, swaying slightly in her drunken state, for a response Bailey was having a hard time coming up with.
    “She’s the girl who’s just trying to have a pleasant drink with her friend on St. Patrick’s Day, just like everyone else.” Michelle challenged the woman beside them with her cold, dead stare. Michelle had always been good at holding her ground. Perhaps it was years of working in the store with her dad from the time she was old enough to run a cash register. Her glare meant business. Her glare meant, “Get the fuck away from my friend or deal with me instead.” Her glare meant, “I’m going to kick your ass if you open your smug mouth again.” Bailey loved her glare at the moment.
    “Whatever.” The woman staggered off.
    “You can’t pay attention to that bullshit, Bay.”
    “It’s not bullshit. She has every right to hate me.”
    “The hell she does. She doesn’t know you.”
    Bailey just stared at Michelle. There were times she actually felt like Michelle did. She felt she deserved forgiveness; she felt she deserved a life—a real one that didn’t leave her incessantly followed around by ghosts. There were those times, but they were few and far between. Most of the time, Bailey felt like she deserved everything she got, and she was going to deal with it until the day she died because she’d earned this. That was her most-of-the-time perspective, and it really didn’t matter that her only remaining friend in the world didn’t agree.
    When the group the drunk girl had returned to started eyeing her venomously, it didn’t take long for Michelle to return the glare with her own dose of lethal eye venom. It also didn’t take long for Bailey to excuse herself from the table to escape the attention.
    “I’ll be fine, Michelle. I just need some air.” She didn’t give Michelle any time to respond before she stood and walked to the back door that led onto a wooden deck that wrapped from the back of the bar around the side. Like most other places in the Ozarks, the trees grew right up to the railing surrounding the deck, and Bailey stood alone in the near-darkness listening to the sounds of the woods around her. She hated this place—almost as much as she loved it.
    Her mother really was the only reason she was here anymore. Her father had passed away nearly two years before while Bailey was sitting in a prison cell. Her mother dealt with the loss on her own because her daughter had been too stupid to keep her ass out of trouble. And now her mother was alone, trying to eke out a living in a town that had taken its toll on her almost as much as it did on Bailey. Her father had died of lung cancer after years of secretly smoking outside back doors and side doors of whatever non-smoking establishment he happened to be at. Nobody smoked anymore; it could kill ya, didn’t ya know? But that was Bailey’s fault too.
    Her father had all but conquered that addiction years ago when Bailey was still in high school. That was until his daughter wound up in jail. Funny how such things tended to shit on everyone around you, including your own father, who ended up smoking himself into an appointment with death far sooner than what he deserved.
    “You know you were supposed to have those sutures removed after seven days, right? Or maybe you didn’t know that, seein’s how you chickened out and ran.” His voice broke her concentration, and she jumped as she wheeled toward him. He was standing behind her, a couple feet away. His expression was impassive and sent a chill up her spine. There was a time he was incapable of being so impassive with her.
    “I just hadn’t gotten around to. . .”
    “It’s fine by me, of course, if you want them growing into your skin. It’ll make removing them all the more fun for you.” His eyes had the glint of hatred, and his smirk was mean. All she could do was swallow over the lump in her throat and try to hold his gaze.
    “I should find Michelle. She’s