Read Online Whisky State of Mind by Karlene Blakemore-Mowle - Free Book Online Page A

had been two years old, but her grandmother had stared at the photo for a few moments before shaking her head sadly and handing it back to her.
    “That’s not the daughter I knew. That woman is a stranger—a sad, lonely stranger.”
    It had hurt Sky that her mother’s own parents could simply stop thinking about the daughter they lost and practically reinvent her death. Not that anyone had asked them, but the few times she’d heard them discuss her mother they had always said they’d lost her to drugs as a teenager. And maybe they had. The reality was, the daughter they had known had, for all intents and purposes, ceased to exist the moment she’d left their house.
    “This place has changed.” She didn’t really want to start this conversation with a deep and meaningful walk down memory lane.
    “Sawyer told you we ’re legit now?” he asked.
    “So he said,” she nodded, her gaze wandering around the room curiously.
    “I wish I’d done it earlier. I wish you’d been around—”
    “So what was so important that you needed to send Sawyer to drag me all the way out here? ” Sky cut him off before he could finish.
    Her abrupt question silenced him and his expression lost the almost vulnerable look of a moment before. She was glad he was now frowning. She could handle anger. She wasn’t ready to deal with anything else yet…if ever.
    “He had to drag you?”
    “Well he certainly wasn’t taking a polite no for an answer. So, here I am. You got your way. What do you want?”
    “I wanted to see you again…I want to fix things.”
    “Fix things?” she asked , staring at him.
    “Look, Whis—” he started then quickly corrected himself as he caught her frown of protest. “Sky. I know you’re angry. I also know this is something I should have done a lot sooner—”
    “You think?”
    “I wanted to,” he sighed, and sat back down in his chair.
    “Well that’s nice. It’s the thought that counts after all,” she muttered sarcastically.
    “What was I supposed to do?” he said , raising his voice across the desk. “You were settled and thriving in a good school with real friends…not to mention your grandparents had the money and the legal team to make sure I never got anywhere near you again.”
    “You seem to have money now,” she pointed out , gesturing around the office and all the renovations that had happened.
    “Now, yes. Not back then. It was too dangerous to bring you back here even though I wanted to.”
    “I was raised here—how could it have been any more dangerous?”
    He gave a brittle laugh. “Try encouraging an outlaw biker club to go straight. It took a bit of discussion to remove ourselves from a long line of bad influences. I made a lot of enemies. I wasn’t going to bring you into all that. Not until I was sure it was safe. But by then—you were already used to another way of life.”
    “You didn’t even try to contact me. Not once in all those years,” she snapped.
    “I couldn’t! Damn it Sky, you don’t know your grandparents like I do . I knew they could give you the best—that’s all I ever wanted for you. You think I wanted to let them get their holier-than-thou claws in you? Of course not. They’d like nothing better than to destroy me…this whole club. I had a responsibility to these people to keep my promise and make something of the club—to make it without the drugs and the guns and all the other shit that we used to do.”
    “It’s nice to know you keep some of your promises then,” she said quietly, wishing she could have sounded a whole lot more angry and a little less choked up.
    She almost felt bad when she saw his shoulders slump slightly.
    “I was hoping you’d come and work here…be part of the club. I’m stepping down soon and I’d really like to know there was still some McKenna blood in this place.”
    “Work here?” Was he serious? “Police raids and drug busts aren’t my kinda’ fun. I’m just a humble waitress and I’m