Ever Bound Read Online Free Page B

through the trees and toward the road. It wouldn’t take her long to figure out that something very wrong had happened to me, and I didn’t feel like answering her questions.
    I made it almost home without incident.
    “So, Mr. Perfect, what exactly did your little religious show back there mean for us?”
    I jumped.
    Grace stood in the shade with her hands on her hips.
    As mad as I was, I was afraid I’d choke her. I continued in the same direction as if she didn’t exist.
    “Are you breaking things off with me after you seduced me?”
    Clenching my fists, I stopped. I’d always been brought up to never raise a hand to a woman, but this wasn’t a woman. I continued walking.
    Grace jumped in front of me and slapped my chest with both hands. “You’re not going to take my virtue, then throw me off to the wayside, Colby Kinsley!”
    That was it.
    I stood taller and stared down into her vile, conniving face. “I feel quite sure that your virtue was thrown carelessly to the wayside some time ago. I had nothing to do with it. I don’t know how you did it, nor do I care to know, but after what you did to me, I will no longer acknowledge your existence. Understand that. Never again will we speak.”
    “My dear, Colby. You were so drunk last night, you don’t remember the way of things. You took advantage of me. I wasn’t strong enough to fend you off, but I was good enough not to tell on you. Now you’re going to treat me this way?” Grace crossed her arms.
    I slipped around her.
    “Is there someone else?” her voice broke behind me.
    Breathing in good thoughts and breathing out Grace, I picked up my pace.
    “I’m the only way you’ll ever amount to anything. You’re a poor farmhand who has nothing to look forward to but your so called salvation. The only thing you’ll ever be is a hog castrator with manure under your nails.”
    After I made it to the house, I jerked the back door open and tore my shirt off. There was just something cleansing about slinging an axe at an innocent woodpile. So, that’s what I’d do. I didn’t care if I broke the axe handle.
    “I’ll be in the back chopping that pile of wood.” I passed Mama on my way through the kitchen.
    “Oh, no you don’t. Not on the Sabbath.” She gave a disapproving glance at my shirtless torso.
    “Okay. Can I go sling an axe at wood without purposely chopping any of it? The Bible says there is a place for anger, and I don’t think you want it in your kitchen.” I eyed the few pieces of China Pop had worked so hard for.
    She looked into my eyes. “Is it anything you want to confide in me about?”
    “It’s something I want to sling an axe about.” I went out the back door and to the wood shed in search of the strongest axe.
    I raised the axe over my head and brought it down on the chopping block as hard as I could. The reverberation of the metal wedge meeting wood jarred my bones. Over and over, I slammed the axe. Raw rage burned my veins.
    It never occurred to me before now what my virtue meant to me. It had never been in danger. It was something I would have shared with the person I spent the rest of my life with. The person with whom I shared my darkest secrets and deepest desires.
    Now the first night with the woman I was bound to for eternity would be blemished with memories of Grace’s filth. I lifted the axe again and brought it down even harder.
    What if a woman could tell you’d had indiscretions with someone else? What if she didn’t want you after she knew? What if I ended up being alone?
    I’d never cared about having someone to love until Grace had shown me exactly what love wasn’t.
    God had taken a rib from Adam to make Eve, but I was sure that Satan had stolen another, ground it with ashes from hell, and saved it for the day he made Grace Rollins.
    A woman spoke from behind me. “He who angers you, controls you.”
    Maybe on a bright sunny day when the world was normal and my virtue hadn’t been ripped away from me, I