Jonny's Redemption (Gemini Group Book 7) by Riley Edwards (audio ebook reader TXT) 📕

be another night for uncomfortable conversations because we wouldn’t be having them. My past was the past and nothing good ever came from looking back. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I worked my ass off to shed every vestige of the Kentucky girl I once was. I’d moved to Tennessee and done whatever I could do to fit in there. I wasn’t ever going back to the holler. Jonny didn’t need to know anything about it because there was nothing worth knowing.

Nothing good.

Nothing decent.

Criminals, cheats, and shiners.

That was no longer my life and I wouldn’t dredge it up. It was over. I’d escaped and survived—the end.

I pushed everything out of my mind and gave Jonny my best smile.

“There’s nothing for you to worry about,” I told him.

“Can’t help but to worry when you’re a million miles away and you look like I punched you in the gut.”

He hadn’t punched me in the gut, but his words had.

“Don’t be silly—”

“And you don’t finish that statement.”

Jonny shifted in his seat and leaned forward but his elbows stayed where they were. If someone was looking at us, which no one was because even though we were on his deck, darkness surrounded us, and not even the seagulls were out. But if someone had been watching, it would look like he was leaning forward to whisper a secret or maybe to kiss me. But I was no fool, I’d seen his ‘Lieutenant Spencer’ stare enough times to know he saw through my lie.

Then he went on as if he weren’t giving me a frosty glare. “We’ve wasted a lot of time. I’ve wasted a lot of time. I’m not asking you to confess your deepest secrets tonight but I am asking you not to lie. You forget, I know you. I know when you’re giving me a bullshit smile to shut me up—”

“You don’t know a thing about me,” I snapped.

“I damn well do. I might not know where you grew up, or if you have brothers and sisters but I know you. I know all the important stuff, the rest of it I’ll learn as we go along. And I know you, I know when you’re lying. I also know when you’re giving me one of your fake-ass smiles. The kind you give to one of those artists when they come to The Farm to record. I don’t want fake, I don’t want lies, I don’t want either of us to hide.”

In a perfect world, I wanted that, too.

“You said you weren’t asking me to confess my deepest secrets tonight.” Jonny's studious study of me was unnerving. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m in an interrogation room and you’re trying to crack a case.”

That was the wrong thing to say and I knew it when Jonny completely closed down.

“Not a cop anymore, Bobby. And we’re on my deck, not an interrogation room.”

I would’ve preferred for him to tell me I wasn’t a suspect, that I was the woman he cared about, the woman he was starting a relationship with and wanted to get to know. But that wasn’t what he said. And if I was being honest, that stung.

I refused to be one of those wishy-washy women. Go, stay, run, come back. But right now, I wished I were one of those women. I wanted to run. Go home and lick my wounds, fortify my walls, and wait for Jonny to come home so we could start anew. Now that I knew a little about who his people were and the legacy they’d passed down through the generations, I’d be prepared. I just needed a little bit of time to come to terms with our differences.

Unfortunately, I’d stubbornly demanded my place. Now I had to stick to my guns and stay. My problem was I didn’t know what to say, which was totally out of character. I always had a snappy retort or some smartass comment at the ready. But snappy and smartass didn’t work on Jonny.

“I don’t know what to say,” I admitted and Jonny’s brow once again arched.

“You, Bobby Layne, are speechless?”

“No, I’m not speechless. There’s plenty I can say. But you said you didn’t want fake so I thought I’d save us the trouble of another go-around and just admit I don’t know what to say to take us back to the light, friendly conversation we were having before I complimented you on your cooking. We could sit in silence, but that’d suck. Or I could make a snappy remark about that damn eyebrow of yours and how you arch it right before you say something smartass. Further, I could tell you that one morning you might wake up to your brows Nair’ed off. You’ll look stupid but in the long run, you’ll thank me for not waxing them. Though, I reserve the right to use wax and not Nair if you continue to annoy me with the brow thing you do.”

Throughout my monologue, Jonny’s lips started twitching. This was highly attractive as was everything he did, including the annoying eyebrow thing, thus making it even more annoying.

Then I watched in rapt attention when his head dipped and he busted out laughing; making everything—every-last-thing about him—even more attractive. He’d laughed more in the last few hours than I’d ever seen but I knew it was a sight that would never get old. It was glorious. Deep and rumbly and made my body come alive in new ways.

“Only you,” he said through a chuckle.

That felt amazing.

“I want all of you, Bobby.”

That did not feel amazing. That felt terrifying.

“And I want you to have all of me.”

Back to floating on cloud nine.

I wanted all of him. I was just worried when he learned I wouldn’t be able to give him parts of me, he’d rescind his offer.

“How long can you stay?” he asked.

“I have my laptop,” I told him and when my answer was met with confusion, I reminded him, “I can work from anywhere. Evie doesn’t care where I