The Road to Rose Bend by Naima Simone (best book club books of all time txt) 📕

of pawning me off on others, she chose to keep me with her even if it meant living on tour buses. Only when the tutors weren’t cutting it and she believed I should be around kids my age did I stay with relatives. And even then, we talked every day. Everything she did was for me. Out of her love for me. Every penny she didn’t spend on my upkeep, she saved for my college education or for whatever I decided to do in life. She gifted me with the down payment on my bar and my house. So no, I can’t resent her. I love her. And I’ve never doubted that love. Not for a second. Especially when she visits and takes over my kitchen, just having to try a new recipe from whatever country she visited last. Which, believe me, is not as awesome as it sounds.”

There was the smile he’d missed last time.

“I’m glad for you. For both of you.”

“Hold on a second.” He walked over to his bike, removed the blanket he always kept in his saddlebag, and strode over to a patch of grass. Snapping it open, he spread it out. Extending his hand to her, he patiently waited until she won whatever internal battle she waged and finally approached him. Sliding her palm across his, she allowed him to guide her down, and then he sank beside her. “Now tell me what that was about.” He held up a hand, palm out. “And yeah, you just met me last night, but I spilled about my childhood to you. From how I see it, you owe me.”

The corner of her mouth lifted, but her bottom lip trembled. Just as he couldn’t stop breathing, he couldn’t stop himself from touching his thumb to it, soothing it.

“Why do you keep doing that?” she whispered. “Touching me?”

He shrugged a shoulder, giving her mouth one last tender brush, then dropping his arm. “I don’t know. I just need to,” he confessed. “Should I stop?”

Her lashes lowered. “No,” she said, her admission as soft as the breeze rustling the leaves above.

“Good. Now don’t change the subject. Tell me.”

Inhaling a breath, she drew her knees up and propped her crossed arms on them. “I guess I’m like your mother. I travel a lot for my job. Which means there’s not a lot of time spent at home, which my boyfriend objected to. And I suppose he had a right to object, even though this was my life before we got together.”

“Boyfriend?” Anger speared him, dagger sharp. And fear. Fear that he’d just found her, and she belonged to someone else.

So what?

And in the blink of an eye, he was that man he despised. The man who would encroach on someone else’s woman. He hated what that said about him, what that made him. But then he stared at the delicate yet proud profile of the woman before him, and he didn’t give a damn.

She was his. He’d known her less than twenty-four hours, and everything in him roared this truth. She was his and he was hers.

“Ex-boyfriend,” she corrected, and calmed the possessive beast he hadn’t known resided within him. “Anyway, being on the road a lot, I didn’t make time for regular doctor visits. But at the beginning of the year, I did. And I was there for almost five hours because my doctor was about to admit me to the hospital. My blood pressure was so high, if I hadn’t come in, he believed I would’ve had a stroke within the next few days.”

“Jesus,” Maddox rasped.

“Yes.” She nodded, tipping her head back and chuckling, although it carried a hard edge to it. “I’m young, live a good life, turned my passion into a career and am damn successful at it. High blood pressure, stroke, possible kidney disease and liver failure—that happens to my grandmother, not me.” She shook her head. “For a long while, I was angry at my body for betraying me. But then I had to admit that the tiredness, headaches, dizziness and occasional shortness of breath hadn’t been due to stress and constant traveling. That it’d been me eating quick and easy foods at shows and exhibitions with little to no exercise. I had to stop beating myself up and instead forgive myself for neglecting me. With that came a determination to take control in all areas of my life.”

She bent her head and rubbed a finger over the ring finger of her left hand. The finger where an engagement ring would’ve sat. An unprecedented spurt of jealousy blasted through him because she’d worn another man’s ring first.

Shit. He was turning into a caveman.

“Kenneth and I were together for two years. It’s been four months since I removed his ring, and one month since I stopped feeling guilty about it. They call high blood pressure the silent killer, and it definitely made me intimately aware of my mortality. So I had to change my diet, exercise regimen, lifestyle...and my partner.”

“Was he—” he trapped the growl in his chest “—abusive?”

“No, well... God.” She huffed out a breath and thrust a hand through her curls, bunching them in a fist. “A part of me hates saying yes. Because it makes me feel weak. Stupid for staying with him so long. When I’m neither.” She blew out another gust of air and turned her head to look at him, her gaze unwavering but...sad. “Yes. Never physically, but emotionally? Mentally? Yes. I was never good enough. I was selfish for traveling so much and not placing our relationship first. I was too big, and because I wouldn’t lose just fifteen pounds apparently his concerns, his needs didn’t matter to me.”

She shoved to her feet, and he followed, but maintained his distance. Let her pace. Let her get this out as if she were lancing a wound and releasing the poison.

Intuition told him she didn’t do this often.

“If I loved him—if I cared about us—I would put my business degree to