Broken, page 1
Copyright
Broken is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BROKEN: A NOVEL
Copyright © 2020 by JM Worthington
All rights reserved.
Editing by KP Editing
Cover Design by KP Designs
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Published by Kingston Publishing Company
- www.kingstonpublishing.com
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Table of Contents
Copyright
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
About the Author
About the Publisher
Prologue
Clay Carter
8-years-old
I’ve missed you my entire life.
I just didn’t know it was you I was missing!
~ Clay Carter
I pulled at the tight bow tie Granny had dressed me in and smiled, knowing my mommy hated when I did that. She said it stretched my collar out. I didn’t care. I tugged on the collar just for the heck of it. Mommy didn’t like anything I did anyway.
I couldn’t understand why my parents didn’t like me. Granny liked me, even if she made me wear my church pants. I would rather wear my jeans and boots, but she said to dress nice.
We would see dancers, and she would get to see her two favorite people in the whole wide world together. I guess that would’ve been Daddy and me. Granny loved Daddy, but Daddy didn’t care about me.
Daddy didn’t even want me to tag along. He never wanted me around, but Granny said he had too. Mommy had gone with her friends, and they couldn’t leave me home alone. I thought about sticking my tongue out at Daddy, but he would have just ignored me anyway. He never cared what I did. Just last month, I mastered the track on my dirt bike. But Daddy didn’t even go to my first race. It was on a Sunday. Sunday was his “me” day.
He gave up his “me” day to attend this stupid recital. I guess he loved it more than himself.
Daddy was acting funny. Once, he even cried, but I couldn’t see over the lady in front of me to know why. Her hat was bigger than the state of Texas. That was where my mommy went. She went every July to see her best friend. I couldn’t understand why her friend never came to our house. We had a big house with extra bedrooms.
Then, Granny caught my attention when she started crying as one tiny dancer, dressed in a pink tutu, started doing some twirling down the center aisle. She held her caramel-colored arms high in the air as she leaped up each of the four steps leading to the stage. I frowned, my eyebrows pulled together as I tried to figure out why she made Granny and Daddy sad. Someone had piled her brown hair on her head like a bird’s nest, which was ironic because she wore a big white bow on the side of it that reminded me of a dove in flight.
She smiled so big my heart jumped in my chest. She was prettier than Margo Presley, and I had told Margo she could be my girlfriend. I wondered who the girl was and if she had a boyfriend.
The program lasted forty-eight minutes, but I couldn’t forget that one girl with a yard of dark-brown hair and the smile of an angel. Daddy was holding some smelly flowers and asked me if I wanted to give them to someone special for Granny and him. I only wanted to give them to her. My tiny dancer.
Out in the main lobby, all the dancers lined up against the wall, and everyone gathered around to take pictures and give out flowers and gifts. I saw my tiny dancer and my heart pitter-pattered. It was weird. My heart had done nothing like that before.
I about leaped on the spot when Daddy handed me those flowers and pointed to my tiny dancer. “Take these over there and give them to her. Tell her it’s from her biggest fan.”
I made a seesaw gesture with my head and raced over, then stopped in front of her. I waved with my free hand, and she smiled again. It made my chest puffy. It was my favorite smile ever. I gave her the flowers and told her they were from me. After all, I’d become her biggest fan.
She cradled them in one arm and held out her other hand.
I stared at the girl. Margo would never be my girlfriend again. Her dark hair and grin didn’t make me smile, but my tiny dancer did. I breathed in deep and forgot what I was even doing. She smelled like strawberry and cream suckers. They were my favorite. I glanced down at her feet, so she didn’t see my cheeks turning red. On her feet were those pink dancing slippers. She was a perfect princess.
I looked up again, and she still had her hand held out. Mommy always said to shake all hands offered for a handshake. I reached for her hand and forced it into mine then shook it up and down twice.
“I love them. Thank you,” my tiny dancer said.
I said nothing — my voice box refused to work. Then I realized she was still holding my hand. That was why.
“I said thank you; you should say you’re welcome,” my tiny dancer said and laughed.
I liked the sound of her voice and the way she said, ‘You’re.’
I liked the sound of her laughter and the way her eyes lit up when she laughed.
I liked her hair and the big white bow holding it up.
I liked her.
Snatching my hand away, I cleared my throat. “Welcome, you’re welcome.”
“Nice to meet you. Can we be friends? Maybe, even best friends.”
I scrunched up my face. She was too pretty to be my friend. Scared, I turned and ran straight into my Granny’s arms.
I never saw my tiny dancer again.
Then one day, I forgot her face.
And on another day, I forgot I even had a tiny dancer.
Chapter 1
Annie López
Carterville was a small town.
With even smaller minded people.
And a place I never intended to call home.
~ Annie López
I sometimes wondered if anything mattered. Don’t get me wrong; I was a realist, but not without emotions. Everyone had those moments that renewed their sense of humanity and found it in the simplest of things: a group of children swinging on a playground, a young couple sharing an ice cream cone on a sweltering summer day, a hug from a mother and son, or a little girl wearing a smocked cotton dress. The other day, a slight flutter tickled my chest at the sight of a little girl walking hand in hand with her daddy.
Humanity was often brought to the surface by the things your heart had lost and longed for. And if life had taught me anything, it was what we often lost, we never found again. There were no do-overs in life. A person wasn’t made to look back. Mimi once told me that every person tells themselves that, but no one ever takes their own advice. I guess that was why God put swivel joints in our necks. For once, I would heed that advice. The past no longer mattered — only the future. My life would start today.
It was February twenty-eight, and everything screamed that I didn’t belong. I had just moved to Small Town, USA in the heart of Tennessee. A late-night rain combined with rising temperatures caused a mist to spiral up from the sidewalks as I walked under a blanket of elm and maple trees the blight of the city had yet touched. The traffic is sporadic. The majority of cars were parked out in front of Pearl Goldberg’s house. Mrs. Goldberg’s husband had been the mayor of Carterville for over forty years.
I couldn’t help but wave to the ladies gathered on the veranda for tea. That wave gained me a few sneers, but only two of the proper ladies pointed that time. Not because they were crotchety old ladies, but because they were vaguely interested to see an unfamiliar person walk by.
Beyond the tree-lined streets of one grand old home after another was the actual town of Carterville. It was homey and had an almost Victorian quality to it. The main street running through town was lined with a flower shop, a dollar store, a small Mom-and-Pop grocery, and nestled in the farthest corner of the street was the Downtown Cafe — my place of employment and current destination.
I trudged in through the back door of the small restaurant, sliding my feet across the slick tile floor — because I was too damn tired to lift them — and pulled my apron off its hook. I started to tie it around my waist when I heard the name that would forev
“Clay Carter is back.”
I fell back into the shadows, and because of that, I had zero friends. However, I still knew who those girls were. They were the popular girls — the ones whose daddies owned half the town — all blonde, all cute, all skinny, and all fake, and every single one of them had a brain the size of a rooster’s testicle. I didn’t know them but already knew I didn’t like them.
I might have been a recluse, but I had the knack of eavesdropping. It was the only thing that kept me sane. I walked over to the grill and started flipping burgers. I’m sure not one of those girls had ever done a day’s worth of work in their lifetime. They stood there laughing and gossiping about the small-town hero of Carterville: Clay Carter, the former all-star quarterback of the state champion football team, and the only son of the biggest landowners in the whole damn county, Wes and Courtney Carter.
Wasn’t sure why I even cared, but for the last five weeks that I’d lived in that armpit from hell called a town, I heard more about the infamous Clay Carter than any other person. I felt a small flutter across my stomach at the thought I might have a chance at meeting him.
“Has Kate seen him yet?” Giggle McGiggleson asked Judy Juggs.
I’d eavesdropped enough to know that Clay had dated Kate Armstrong throughout high school and rumored to have asked her to marry him before dumping her to attend college in Texas.
Okay, I admit, I was eavesdropping a lot.
“I doubt it. I haven’t read about Clay being killed yet.” Giggle, giggle, snort, snort. I rolled my eyes; not one damn thing they had said was that funny.
“What the hell are you looking at?” the prettiest of the group asked, and stared daggers at me.
I laid down the spatula I was holding and realized I’d been staring at them the whole time through the window separating the kitchen and the serving area. I stuck out my tongue and then gave her a big, cheesy grin until he walked up. I swallowed, trying to keep my throat from closing.
A guy, my age? easily older? younger? — The guy, most girls would describe as “eye candy” walked in and over to the group of those girls. No one easily intimidated me, but he… he intimidated me.
Their attention adjusted from me to him.
“Be nice, Cat. That look really doesn’t look good on you,” he replied, in a lazy drawl as he ran his hand through his long, sun-bleached-blond hair that hung around his face and revealed a piqued curiosity.
“Clay,” she giggled out more than spoke the word.
She batted her eyelashes. I thought that was a move even too cheesy for the movies nowadays. I guess I was wrong, because Giggly Airhead #2 followed suit with a flutter of her own eyelashes.
“Hey,” Giggly Airhead #2 said, and waved her hand like she’d won the lottery.
Clay smirked and returned the wave, but he was uninterested. He was almost mocking her.
He aroused my interest. A leggy blonde irritated him. One point for Clay. Still, he wasn’t my type, but it was impossible not to admire his tall, muscular physique and the ease at which he moved around the room. He narrowed his mesmerizing blue eyes and turned them in my direction. Damn, they had to have been the clearest blue eyes I’d ever seen. I’d say they were the color of the Caribbean, but since the only body of water I’d ever been around was the Tennessee River, I wouldn’t know what color blue the Caribbean was. I continued to stare at them. My knees went weak. I’d never gone goo goo over any guy before, but I could see what all the talk had been about. Clay Carter would easily get a virgin to drop her undies with the stare he was giving me.
He stood there for a second before heading into the back where I was. I froze the moment he stormed through the kitchen door.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked. His eyes never strayed as they roamed over my body.
I backed up bumping my hip against the side of the grill.
I was sure I was having a hot flash.
Or, at the very least my skin was turning to flames.
Or, I was leaning onto the hot grill.
“Ow.” I jumped in place.
“I asked you a question,” he said.
He’d put up an invisible wall of armor with his proud posture and rigid body language. It should’ve made me dislike him. However, I had never been one to do as I should.
“An-nn-ie Lo-López,” I stuttered, and crossed my arms, trying to hide from those eyes. They were incredible. The thick black lashes contrasted with his blond hair and almost looked like eyeliner. It was unjust. I had no outstanding features. I was one color: brown. Brown hair, brown eyelashes, brown skin. The only exception was my eyes; they were green, which did nothing for me except distract from any exotic look I might have had going.
Come on, Annie López quit staring at him like an idiot.
His expression melted into a smile. He could easily tell he was getting to me.
How could he not?
He had the tightest, hardest body I’d ever seen. I wanted to rip open the shirt he was wearing knowing I would be awarded with a fantastic set of abs if I did. He had worked hard to obtain that body, but the lucky bastard was born with a face that rivaled even that body. Every bone chiseled into perfection, cheekbones as strong as his jaw, and I could not even describe the depth of blue in those eyes. They were piercing and intense and had not once stopped staring at me.
“Damn,” he said, and ran his hand through a mound of long, silky strands of hair.
From that glimmer in his eye, I could see he thought he was God’s ultimate creation.
The guy who believed every woman was his personal Eve.
Was it wrong that I wanted to kiss him and slap him at the same time?
Bob, the owner, busted open the door. “Clay, can I help you?”
Clay shook his head. “No, I just thought,” he paused, and gave me one more hard stare. “Never mind.” He waved his hand and turned on his boot heel to leave without a backward glance. I turned back to the sink determined not to watch him walk away, since his backside, I assumed, was damn hot in those skintight jeans.
“Annie, leave that one alone,” Bob said, shaking his head and looking back into the dining room at Clay. “No good would come from you two together.”
“Don’t worry about us. I’m more trouble than he’s looking for.”
Bob left, mumbling something about calling our dad. He wasn’t calling mine, for the simple fact, I never had a dad that gave a crap about me.
I glanced back out the small opening leading into the dining room. Clay had placed himself at the corner where he easily viewed the entire restaurant. But he seemed disinterested with everyone, even the gaggle of girls surrounding him, who were unaware he wasn’t even part of their conversation.
They each tried to gain his attention, but the most anyone achieved was a sexy little smirk where only one side of his face turned up. At one point, he reached up to pull his long, blond hair into a bun, causing the muscle in his upper arm to flex and my body to tingle.
“I think he might be the one causing the trouble,” Bob said, and placed his hands on my shoulder to turn me.
Flames were shooting off the grill, scorching the vent hood. I turned off the grill, and the fire died down to a small smoldering-flare. The burgers, unfortunately, didn’t survive.
“Told you I was trouble,” I said, and shrugged my left shoulder.
Bob had taken an instant liking to me and looked over all my faults. He had even found a place for me to stay. When I first showed up at his office looking for a job, I’d taken temporary residence at the Knotty Pine Inn. It was less than desirable, but it was a warm place to lie my head at night. But no sooner did I get my name out, then he was on the phone and arranging for me to stay at a rental house in one of his friend’s extra homes for free. Normally, my pride wouldn’t allow me to accept charity, but with only two hundred and sixty-three dollars left to my name, I swallowed my pride and whispered, “thanks,” and moved in three days later.
“Annie, stay away from Clay Carter. I’ve known his family for years. I promise you two will lead to nothing but problems.”
Bob knew everyone in the community except the one I wanted to know about. I came to Carterville to learn about my mother. All I had was a name — Evie López — and that she was living in Carterville when she died in a car wreck on Route 41A. She was only eight months pregnant with me but held on long enough to give birth. She never revealed who my father was. Some people believed it was the man who died in the wreck with her, Cory Blankenship. However, there was no proof that he was. I was more than ready to know where I came from, but if I didn’t find her small gravesite out at old Lanier Cemetery, I would swear I had the wrong town. At the mention of her name, I either got a flat-out, “I never knew her,” or everyone around would go tight-lipped.
