Better Than This: A Nine Minutes Spin-Off Novel Read online

  Better Than This

  A Nine Minutes Spin-Off Novel

  Beth Flynn

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, places, actual events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks, and word marks mentioned in this book. All trademarked names are honored by capitalization and no infringement is intended.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without the permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is originally published.

  Better Than This

  Copyright © 2019 by Beth Flynn

  All Rights Reserved

  Edited by Amy Donnelly and Cheryl Desmidt

  Cover Design by Jay Aheer at Simply Defined Art

  Farmhouse Cover Photo by Scott Dry, Jr. @sadjrphotography on Instagram

  Farmhouse Photo used with the permission of Carolyn West

  Interior Formatting by Amy Donnelly at www.alchemyandwords.com

  Proofreading by Judy Zweifel at Judy’s Proofreading

  ISBN: 9781078307062

  Imprint: Independently Published

  Better Than This is the third spin-off novel from The Nine Minutes Trilogy and can be read as a standalone. However, if you’d like to familiarize yourself with the rest of my books, I suggest you read them in the following order:

  Nine Minutes

  (Book One in the Nine Minutes Trilogy)

  Out of Time

  (Book Two in the Nine Minutes Trilogy)

  A Gift of Time

  (Book Three in the Nine Minutes Trilogy)

  The Iron Tiara

  (A Nine Minutes Spin-Off Novel)

  Tethered Souls

  (A Nine Minutes Spin-Off Novel)

  Thank you for your support and readership!

  For all my readers who are currently living in or approaching the fourth quarter.

  Newsflash: Your best is yet to come!

  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

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  A Note From The Author

  Acknowledgments

  About Beth Flynn

  Keep In Touch With Beth

  Also by Beth Flynn

  Bonus From Nine Minutes

  Prologue

  The Disgusting Pig

  Everyone knows life can change in the blink of an eye, but what they don’t know is if it will change for the better...or worse. A devastating car crash resulting from a blown tire. A winning lottery ticket bought with your last buck. A backyard pool without a childproof gate. Faulty house wiring that causes a fire erasing every tangible memory of your existence. Or in my case, catching my younger sister in bed with the man I’d given the best of my yesterdays and had promised all my tomorrows. All unforeseen circumstances we don’t have control over. Or do we? Did the car owner know he had bald tires and drove on them anyway? Did they know the risk when they hired an unlicensed electrician to save a couple hundred dollars? Did I ignore the obvious signs that my marriage was deteriorating? Or did I see them and choose to pretend they didn’t exist? So again, I ask, were these unforeseen circumstances? Or choices?

  My story is as cliché as they come, and my experience couldn’t add anything different or special to marriages across the world. Safe marriages, routine marriages, comfortable marriages. Even happy marriages.

  I gave Richard what I believed were the best years of my life, accepting a childless union with the man who I thought could give me everything except children. It’s not that Richard didn’t want kids. It was that he couldn’t have them. I knew that when we married, and it didn’t matter. We were happy. At least I thought we were. Looking back now, I can see that it was an illusion we worked hard to create. We both needed something perfect to make up for our flawed and imperfect pasts. Doesn’t everybody do that? Toward the end, we’d become nothing more than roommates. Talk about banal, right? Good friends who shared the morning paper over coffee and croissants and made it a point to play tennis at least two evenings a week. We shared household responsibilities, the remote, and little else. It was a business relationship, not a marriage. Our home, our routines, our lives were as sterile as his testicles.

  Richard wasn’t a bad guy. Unless you count sleeping with my sister as bad. It’s strange how I’ve managed to forgive him. Once I forged through the grief, I was able to look back with more clarity. Richard had brought neatness and order to my life I thought I needed. And it worked. But only for a while. We knew something was missing and we both ignored it. Until she showed up.

  My baby sister, Frenita, who at seventeen decided to call herself Fancy after the Reba McEntire song, had been down on her luck and asked to stay with Richard and me until she got back on her feet. Down on her luck, meaning her man of the hour, month, or year had dumped her. Fancy never worked a day in her life. She was a professional mistress who targeted men of financial means. At fifty-two years old, I considered myself an intelligent and savvy woman and never in a million years would’ve believed she’d target my husband. But she did. In the end, I’d wanted nothing more to do with her, but because she was my only living relative, I wouldn’t allow myself to lash out. She was still my little sister, so I settled for distancing myself in place of vengeance.

  Instead of staying in Greenville, South Carolina, and living with daily reminders of their betrayal, I went home. Pumpkin Rest was three hours away, where our elderly grandparents raised Fancy and me. A sleepy little hamlet in the northern end of South Carolina with one intersection and very few residents, it was a place where I wasn’t reminded of the geometrically faultless straight lines of our luxury condominium in Greenville. Pumpkin Rest didn’t have condos, car washes, cafés, or state-funded pristine parks. It couldn’t boast of organic grocery stores, gyms, or fast food restaurants. The one intersection affectionately referred to as the crossroads, housed a small grocery store, gas station, diner, and pharmacy now turned hardware store.

  I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it
until I sought refuge in its quiet splendor. As badly as I’d wanted to escape the dusty and lonely roads of my youth, I’d never felt more alive than when I stepped on the porch of my childhood home for the first time in too many years to count. After not being able to keep up with the mortgage, the couple who’d purchased it after my grandmother’s death eventually forfeited it to the bank. It remained abandoned and neglected until I bought it last year.

  I glanced down at my hands. The age spots there were even more evident since I’d been working in my yard and kept forgetting to wear gloves. That wasn’t entirely honest. I’d made a deliberate choice—there’s that word again—not to wear gloves. I’d missed the feel of the rich, dark earth between my fingers and under my nails. Memories of Richard’s soft and perfectly manicured hands dragged themselves up from the recesses of my brain. Hands that didn’t like to get dirty. Hands that belonged to a man who insisted we buy a condominium so he wouldn’t have to bother caring for a lawn or paying someone to care for a yard he didn’t need.

  I tossed a weed into the bucket beside me and stood up. After removing my floppy hat, I swiped my arm across my brow. It was a scorcher, and my back had started bothering me. I glanced over at the front porch and saw the dip in the roofline where a beam sagged. A gutter perilously dangled by a thread thanks to the previous night’s rainfall. I cocked my head to the side and glanced at the siding that was so worn, the original wood peeked out at me like a forgotten friend. It’ll all get fixed in good time, I told myself as I stretched while enjoying the melodic sounds of nature.

  Other than my childhood best friend, Darlene, that’s what I’d missed the most about Pumpkin Rest. The lack of human noise. The town was devoid of traffic, sirens, stores that blared music, and people talking loudly on their cell phones. I’d picked the perfect place to heal, to regroup, to rethink my life and my future. I was experiencing the epitome of contentment and couldn’t fathom anything that could disrupt my retreat from the rat race.

  I was about to resume my yard work when I stopped and looked around. I’d heard what I thought was a lawnmower. Impossible. Other than the Pritchard farm at the end of my dirt road, I had no neighbors. And the last of the Pritchards had died off, leaving no heirs. That wasn’t entirely true. Two brothers were the rightful owners. The oldest, Kenny Pritchard, went to prison the same year their father died, leaving the youngest brother, Jonathan, a legal ward of the state. Kenny was killed years later in a prison fight, and the developmentally challenged Jonathan wasn’t in a position to claim his property, leaving no one who wanted to assume responsibility for a dilapidated old farmhouse. I took a deep breath and shoved aside the grief that still rose in my chest when I let myself think about the Pritchard family. I’d considered buying the property to guarantee my solitude but saw no need as nobody in their right mind would want to live out there. The sound was getting louder when I realized that lawnmowers didn’t rumble.

  I turned around and watched as a motorcycle slowly made its way toward me. He must’ve missed or ignored the Private Road and Dead End signs. I walked to the edge of my yard to warn the solitary rider that the road didn’t go through and that he should probably turn around in my gravel driveway. As he effortlessly glided past the front of my house, spewing dust behind him, I eyed his muscular and heavily tattooed arms. He was wearing a black do-rag on his head, and the sun bounced off an earring in his right ear. Dark glasses hid his eyes as he gave me a curt nod with a chin that boasted a neatly trimmed beard.

  I raised my arm to motion him to stop when I saw his gas tank. My eyes widened as I recognized the image emblazoned there. That’s not a…? Why yes, I think it is! What a disgusting pig I mouthed. It was obvious he’d caught me because I saw a hint of a smile before he continued his way down the road to nowhere.

  “So, my disgust amuses you?” I said out loud as I watched his back, a thick braid swaying between his shoulder blades. I snorted and squatted to resume my gardening. I’ll show him. When he finds out there’s nothing at the end of the road except for a run-down farmhouse and neglected fields, he’ll have to turn around. And when he does, I won’t even bother looking up when he passes by. I smugly returned to my yard, concentrating on a patch that I intended to clear so I could plant vegetables.

  After twenty minutes I had to use the bathroom and busted a move getting in and out of the house in two minutes. I didn’t want to miss my chance to ignore him. The thought made me laugh at myself, and I returned to my weed pulling. Another twenty minutes passed, and I started to wonder if I’d missed him. I couldn’t have because I’d watched from the bathroom window.

  Two hours later (I know this because I kept checking my watch), I was forced inside by an afternoon rain shower, but I carefully kept an eye on the front of the house. I fell into bed that night exhausted and convinced myself that I’d somehow missed his return from the Pritchard farm. I didn’t know if it was from the yard work under the relentless sun or my constant but obviously ineffective vigil that caused me to collapse into bed utterly spent. My last conscious thought before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep was, what kind of man has a vulgar display of female genitalia painted on his motorcycle?

  Chapter 1

  He’s Not My Biker

  “A black do-rag and an X-rated gas tank? I’m impressed that you even know what a do-rag is, Barbie.”

  “Will you stop it, Darlene?” Ignoring my best friend’s smirk, I added, “I saw my share of bloody do-rags in the ER. I can’t believe our state doesn’t enforce a motorcycle helmet law.”

  I was at Pumpkin Rest’s only gas station inquiring about the previous day’s mystery motorcycle rider. Darlene shook her head and replied in her smooth Southern drawl, “Nobody like that comes to mind. At least not while I’ve been on duty.” She followed up with a feigned dreamy look and said, “I’d be hard-pressed not to remember a hottie like that passing through these parts.”

  Darlene’s favorite country songs from the sixties and seventies floated through the speakers of the antiquated stereo system that was perched on a shelf behind her. We were being serenaded by Tammy Wynette who was telling us to “stand by your man.”

  I rolled my eyes at Darlene’s comment and the song lyrics before saying, “I never said he was a hottie, Dar.”

  “You didn’t have to,” she laughed. “Perhaps he found his way off the Pritchard farm through some of the back roads.”

  The Pritchards had been notorious bootleggers and there were secret trails leading away from their property. It was possible, but not likely, that the biker had found one of those paths. However, if by some remote chance he had, he would’ve come out on the other side of their farm in a different county.

  I shook my head in disagreement and stepped to the side while Mr. Shook came in to buy his daily newspaper and chewing tobacco. I watched as Darlene treated him like he was the most important human being on the planet. A wave of guilt blanketed me as I thought about all the years I’d lost with Darlene. We’d been best friends from the time I was thirteen right up until the day I left for college. Once I stepped over the threshold of my dorm room, I never looked back, not even coming home for my grandmother’s funeral or the sale of her home. If it wasn’t for Darlene, I wouldn’t even have a box of the family keepsakes and mementos that she so lovingly packed and stored away so Fancy wouldn’t sell or donate them. Or worse yet, throw them away.

  “You okay, honey? I was only teasing, you know.” Darlene’s voice brought me out of my guilt-riddled memory.

  “I was thinking…” I gulped. “Dar, I’m so sorry.”

  “Stop it. Stop it right now. We’ve been through this at least a dozen times since you moved back here. I’ve accepted your apology even though I didn’t need one.” She reached across the counter and took my hand. “I understand that you wanted more. I always knew you were destined for great things and I’m glad you followed your dream.” With a sincere smile she added, “But I’m also glad you found your way back home.”

  Th
is was the Darlene I remembered and missed. The friend who married Barry, her high school sweetheart, and was still over the moon in love after more than thirty years. The woman who raised five children, only one of them biological. The others belonged to her extended family who’d fallen on hard times. She was the friend who’d continued to send me Christmas and birthday cards every year since I moved away. The same person who welcomed me back with open arms and treated me like I’d never left. Darlene was a woman who loved unconditionally and forgave wholeheartedly. I couldn’t think of anyone I admired more, and my eyes started to mist over with regret over the lost years I could’ve had with her.

  I was saved from my remorseful thoughts when the chime alerting Darlene that someone had pulled up to the pumps echoed loudly. We both watched as a gray pickup truck towing a motorcycle parked, and a very tall, muscular man got out. He was obviously a Native American. And a handsome one at that.

  “I haven’t seen him before. Is he from around here?” I asked as I craned my neck to get a better look. She didn’t answer as we spied an attractive woman emerging from the other side of the truck followed by a teenaged girl, and a boy of about five or six. The man opened the back door, unstrapped a baby from a car seat and handed him to the teen. “Looks like the dad has a lot of tattoos. Maybe he knows who the mystery biker is.”