Wrath: A Sinful Secrets Romance, page 1
Contents
Author’s Note
First Quarter
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
Second Quarter
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
Half Time
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Third Quarter
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
Fourth Quarter
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
Overtime
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Double Overtime
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Wrath
A Sinful Secrets Romance
Ella James
Copyright © 2021 by Ella James
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Author’s Note
This story is emotional, tender, and beautiful, but it has dark parts. Triggers include mental health struggles, suicide, trauma, abuse, drug use, and some themes that may be difficult for LGBTIQA+ readers struggling with faith issues. All these things are handled as gently as possible.
Summary Blurb
Josh Miller.
That's his name, but I just call him DG for Do Gooder.
This guy is relentless. All-American, baby-faced, blue-eyed band dork who's not a band dork at all, because you can't be a dork when you're getting scouted to play college soccer. When he's not busy doing music or sports, DG is counting up his Boy Scout badges or front-rowing it at the First Baptist church.
DG is my new stepbrother. I'm a whole year older, not that he knows. I don't think he knows I'm starting senior year a year late. And he definitely doesn't know why. I've got secrets I'm taking with me to the grave.
Everyone thinks I came to play varsity football, but I've got other plans, and DG's trying to thwart them all. He's making my life worse than it already is.
Having him around is a damn plague. But I can fight back. I found out a little secret about Mr. Perfect. He plays for the "other" team. That ball bat he's got stuffed into his gray sweatpants—it swings "that" way. The best part about this twisted game is when I find out it gets hard for me.
The Do Gooder...he wants me. I don't know why. But I know how to make him pay.
First Quarter
One
Josh
August 2018
What is it about the lake that makes cell service go to shit? I squint down at my phone’s screen, which I can barely see for the sunlight streaming over my shoulders and around my head. No bars. I guess really they’re dots. But anyway, there’s none of them.
Probably for the best. You always hear how it’s better to unplug and all that good stuff. Fishing’s just so boring. I should probably quit coming out, but there’s something about stepping off the dock into the boat’s hull that I can’t resist. Sometimes I bring my buddies, but honestly, I like the water better when it’s just me.
I reel my line in, lay my pole down in the belly of the boat, and use the trolling motor to scoot out of my quiet little spot, winding down a marshy inlet that makes up one of the lake’s nine fingers. It’s pretty big, as far as lakes go—80 square miles, smushed between the Alabama and Georgia lines—and on a map, it really does look like Nine Fingers Lake has nine fingers.
When I was a little kid, I would look up at the red clay cliffs that make up most of what would be shoreline, and I would imagine Native American warriors swinging down off vines, maybe battling a gator or fishing for one of the big catfish that made our lake a famous fishing hole for pro anglers. That was before I understood what happened to those people. Where they went. And how I got here.
Damned depressing. Makes me mad, too. If there's anything I hate, it's bad, unfair shit. My mom says I've always been that way. She used to tell everybody maybe I'd make a good judge one day, but that's not happening. Only judge I know of is the one that did my parents' divorce, and he's a shithead. Not looking to be like that guy.
Don't know what I will do, but I've got a year to decide how to escape Fairplay. It's early August now. Next year at this time, I might already be at college. Probably at Auburn, Bama, or UAH in Huntsville. I've got some time to pick. Not that many options, and probably none outside of Alabama due to cost, but it’ll be okay. I can still start my next chapter once I get out of this backwards place.
I'm so lost in my head, I'm almost surprised when the water turns choppy, sloshing up into the boat a little. Coming up on the channel—that's the deep part of the lake—and still using the trolling motor. Dumb.
I fix that, lowering the larger motor down into the water. I’ve gotta gun it to get planed off, but after that I'm moving at a good clip, flying over the open water, so fast that the humid air makes my eyes water. I'm passing by a bunch of little sandy islands, making sure I'm in between the red and green buoys that dot this water like tree signs on a hiking trail.
I've got a memory for almost every island, especially Snake Island. It’s a haven for water moccasins, so for Fairplay High homecoming every winter, we dare each other to jump off Harrison Point, and then you have to kick up from the depths and start swimming toward Snake Island.
It's not the sand that's water moccasin paradise, but the water all around it. It's out there in the middle of the lake, where it’s not normally marshy, so nobody knows why snakes like it there. Anyway, I know two people who've gotten bitten, but we keep on doing it. Traditions.
I think about explaining that to my new stepbrother. He’s coming down to live with his dad—my stepdad—for senior year. Coming from Richmond, Virginia. I grin, imagining what he’ll think of all us Alabama rednecks.
Is it weird I'd like to come back here one day? Long time in the future, when I'm done with school and got my degree. Maybe got a good job doing something practical. I could start a business.
If local people knew about me, would anybody come?
That's years and years away, though. I could even wait ten years. Let this place catch up to the times.
I cast my gaze out over the water. The wind is pushing it down flatter out ahead of me, and a beam of sunlight bouncing off the surface makes me squint, even with my shades on.
There's a bunch of places I could go—a lot of quieter, tucked away spots—but I always end up out here on the widest part of the lake, which flows under both the causeway—a bridge for cars—and the train trestle bridge that adjoins my hometown of Fairplay to Cillin, Georgia.
My boat’s got a depth finder; it says the water under the trestle bridge is more than a hundred feet deep. All the old folks in our town tell stories about the man-eating catfish that live under there. Local lore. Still, when my friends get drunk and try to jump 100-plus feet off the thing, I shoot that shit down real fast.
I look up at the bridge now. Looks old and unstable, but the trains still use it. I spend a few minutes just idling in its slatted shadows. I like the sloshing of the water on the bridge’s legs and against my boat. Water’s pretty smooth here, so I lie on my back in the boat's hull for a few minutes, staring at the train tracks above. As the boat drifts, the amber sunlight moves over my face in gentle waves, turning the inside of my eyelids yellow-red.
I think this would be a peaceful way to die. And that’s morbid, because I don’t want to die. I laugh softly, peeking through my lashes at the bridge’s underbelly.
Train, don't come yet. I’m pretty sure I know i
Is somebody walking up there? I push up on one elbow, squinting against the sunlight that's beaming across my face.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM...
Sounds a little echo-y. I can’t see anybody yet—bright sunlight—but I can hear what I’d bet are footsteps.
Then they falter. That's when I see him. He’s tall, wearing dark pants with his arms bare, and I think a ball cap. Within a second or two, the guy’s walking right over me. I can't tell if he looks down. Doesn't slow, that's for sure. Then he's in the middle of the bridge. I hear a sound that's not the boom of footsteps before I see legs dangling off the bridge’s side.
Oh, damn.
This guy’s brave—or stupid.
I sit up more. Yeah, this dude’s definitely sitting on the edge of the bridge. He's got some long legs that are still at first...and then they start to swing a little. Probably just my imagination, but I feel like they're swinging in an agitated kind of way.
You should be nervous, I think at him.
The only person I know who jumped off the trestle bridge is Matt McGuin, when he was drunk on the Fourth of July, the summer after his freshman year of college. I guess the impact got him, and due to all the alcohol, he couldn’t swim up to the surface. Mrs. McGuin didn't even go to the funeral. Wouldn't come out of her house for months.
Something falls down off the tracks. I guess a little dirt or something. I’m frowning up at him when it happens again. This time, something hits me.
This guy's throwing pebbles? What the hell?
I shield my forehead with my hand, and right about the time I'm gonna shout up at him, there’s a creak. He’s standing. I think: good he’s leaving, he’ll be gone before the train comes.
But he jumps.
No, that’s not a jump. The mofo dove off the bridge. I see the blur of his form—fucking falling—and I note shoes on his feet. Holy shitballs. His massive splash rocks my boat pretty damn hard. I sit there with my heartbeat going haywire for a second, waiting for his head to pop out of the water. When it doesn’t happen, my heart shoots up into my throat.
Put the trolling motor down and get him!
He’ll come up below the boat!
It takes my brain another second to realize I need to dive in.
No shit, Miller.
Hesitation—thinking of those catfish. Then I tug my shirt over my head—why does that matter, dumbass?—and acknowledge that my hesitancy is because I'm hoping that his head'll break the surface any second.
When it doesn't, I do what any Fairplay guy would do. Lifeguard since I was fourteen, swimming in this lake since before I could walk. I step up onto one of my leather swivel seats and dive in after.
Motherfuckit.
There's always that initial shock of cold—even in summer. My head and shoulders break the surface, and my legs are kicking and my arms are treading. Dammit! I don't see him.
I dive under, kicking forward, maybe closer to the spot where he plunged under. Kind of don't remember where—
Oh shit! The fucker KICKED me! In the fucking temple! I surface holding my head, and the sounds of choking fill my ears. I'm wiping my eyes when he grabs onto my arm and pulls hard.
“UUUUUUUUGGHHK!”
“Uuuuuuuugggghhkkk!”
The awful choking sounds he’s making are terrible, and so loud. They would freak me right the fuck out—if I'd never heard another fucker choking.
I ignore that part and also the guy’s big-eyed face and open mouth, and when he won't stop pulling on me, I sorta lightly punch him, make my way around behind him. He’s still grabbing at me, so I slap at him again.
“Get on your back!”
He doesn’t—he’s still flailing—but somehow I get my free arm around his head so that his chin is in the crook of my elbow. There's a second where I guess he realizes I’ve got him. His hands come around my arm, squeezing, and I pant, "Better not do that."
He's still making the awful sound—wet and hoarse from low down in his throat—and I can tell he's kinda bad off because I feel his body shaking.
"Just chill, brother. I gotchu."
His fingers claw my arm. The choking sounds keep coming. I’m almost glad he’s clawing me because at least he hasn’t croaked yet, but his hand is strong. He’s hurting my arm, and it’s keeping me from swimming as hard.
"Stop, dude! Relax and trust me."
I don't know if he does, or if maybe he passes out. His body feels near limp except the shaking and the awful gasping as I swim with long, hard strokes toward the mound of rock that marks the base of the bridge.
Jesus, it's a long way off.
"I gotcha, man. It's okay."
I feel panicked that I can’t do more than swim and drag him. He’s still gurgling, choking, and that sound is getting to me.
Long strokes, Miller. Focus.
Then he's coughing—which sounds milder, like when you sputter on some pool water. Dammit, I wish I could see his face, look at the color of his lips but I can't; the lifeguard hold I’ve got him in means that I’m basically dragging him through the water by his head, so I can keep his mouth above the surface.
Can't do anything but kick and pull...and kick and pull with my free arm. Inhale through my nose, exhale through my mouth. Just when I’m feeling dizzy from the strain of dragging him, I remember: the boat.
Shit! I can’t call 9-1-1 without my phone. I cut my gaze down and back, trying to get a look at his face, and the guy gives a rumbling cough. I can hear his breath after—a shallow wheeze. His hand closes around my forearm again, and then he's prying my hand off his shoulder, causing me to lose my rescue grip on his head.
I grab at him, and he whirls around with a splash. I'm opening my mouth to ask if he can swim on his own when his cold hand gives my chest a shove. For a second as he coughs and his lips tremble, I just stare.
God, his eyes are made of river water. Deep gray-green with flecks of gold-brown. I take in his face—the stark cheekbones and lush mouth, slightly parted around chattering teeth. He's got hair flopping into his face, over dark, strong-looking brows. He coughs again, and I realize his lips are just a touch blue at the corners.
"Hey—" I reach for him.
He's treading water, clearly struggling, but I see him recoil.
"You don't want help?" I gesture at the boat. "Let’s swim to my boat. I'll take down the step ladder—"
He doesn't even shake his head. He just starts swimming toward the land bank that the bridge connects to. I swim after him because I'm scared he'll drown or something. I’m about to tell him to kick his shoes off when he turns around, splashing his hand toward me. "Get the fuck back!”
