I finish dish duty and glance out the sliding door toward the backyard, where Jensen is outside playing with Gretchen and Gideon after the light drizzle we got that evening. They’re half-siblings, but they look nothing alike. They have soft features like Kath does, but their hair is almost colorless. Dad said his hair was that pale when he was a kid. The twins are like two effervescent angels. Jensen is dark and hardened. The three of them all laughing and playing together is a sight to see.

A warm hand wraps around my shoulder. “You okay, Waverly?”

It’s my father.

“Of course I’m okay.” I force a smile and pray to God he can’t see right through me.

“Is Jensen bothering you?” His lips go straight and his brows meet in the middle. “You haven’t been yourself since he came around.”

“School stuff,” I say, placing my hand over his. “Getting nervous about getting into college. Still haven’t heard from my number one and graduation’s coming up.”

His face relaxes as he kisses my forehead. “You worry too much about your future. You know I’ll always make sure you’re provided for.”

“I appreciate it, Dad, but this is my dream.”

Dad leans down, kissing my forehead. “You’re a good girl, Waverly. Heavenly Father has big plans for you. I feel it in my soul.”

“After college, Dad.” I smile. “I just want to study literature, make some friends, and then I’ll settle down.”

He doesn’t say much, which concerns me, but I chalk it up to my anxiety about not hearing back yet from the University of Utah.

“I’ve been doing good, though, right, Dad?” I glance up at him, meeting his eyes with as much hope as I can muster. “I’m doing all the right things. Making you proud. Showing you I can handle being on my own for a few years.”

“We need to get through the rest of the summer,” he says, his eyes whipping outside to Jensen. “A lot can happen after high school graduation. People change. Attitudes change.”

“Dad.” I tilt my head. “You know me. I’m not like most young women my age.”

I glance across the room at Bellamy. She’s sitting in Dad’s overstuffed club chair flipping through a Better Homes & Gardens magazine. At almost twenty-two, she’s never moved from home, not even after finishing her associate’s degree last year.

I love my sister more than words, but I have no desire to still be living at home at this age, waiting to be married off—if that’s even what she’s doing. I want to settle down someday, but I want to live a little first.

“You could always go to Whispering Hills Community College.” Dad loosens his grip on my shoulder and pats my back. “Bellamy loved it.”

Bellamy is a closed book. Sometimes I think she talks about everyone else’s secrets just to cover up the fact that she has a few of her own. None of us know what she’s thinking half the time. She could’ve hated college, for all we knew.

“You know where I want to go,” I say to Dad. We’ve had this talk before. I applied to four in-state schools, though my first pick is Utah. As long as I get accepted and get a partial scholarship, I can go. Dad, even on his pharmacist’s salary, can’t afford to send me away. He has way too many mouths to feed here.

He made the requirements crystal clear to me last year. Walk a straight line. Get a scholarship. That’s all I have to do to get out of here.

“Listen, everything will work out just the way Heavenly Father wants it to.” His words, normally a downy soft pillow of comfort on which to land, don’t offer the same effect this time. Dad releases my shoulder from his grip and disappears, retiring to his den for his nightly devotions.

I plop down into a nearby chair, resting my chin into my palm. The solid ground upon which I’d been building my future seems to be shakier than before. The only thing I can pin it on is Jensen. Something about him is making my father doubt my ability to go out into the world on my own.

“I found out what happened to Jensen.” Bellamy’s words hook me hard. “Why he was sent here.”

“Oh, yeah?” I take the chair next to her and do my best to pretend I’m not overly interested. “How?”

“Overheard Mom talking to Kath and Summer.” Bellamy licks her index finger and pages through her magazine. She rests it in her lap for a moment, glancing out the sliding door to where Gideon is stomping into tiny water puddles and splashing Gretchen. Jensen clearly taught him that.

“Okay, so what happened?” I hate that she’s keeping me on edge, but I can’t let on that I care as much as I do.

Bellamy folds her magazine and turns to me, leaning in. I do the same. Her face holds no expression. “He slept with his stepmother.”

I want to throw up.

My stomach sours and I fight the retching that threatens my throat. It’s the most vile, disgusting thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life. How can Bellamy just sit there and pretend like we’re discussing the weather? How is she not equally as disgusted?

I remove my gaze from outside, where Jensen’s still playing. I can’t look at him the same, not anymore. I’m not sure what makes me more nauseous—the fact that he slept with someone who was essentially his stepmother, the fact that he convinced me it was perfectly natural to touch myself while thinking of him, or the fact that I willingly did it.

I was a fool to think he actually gave a shit about me. He’s a manipulative con artist, filled with sin and blackness, and I was nothing but a pawn in his twisted game.

I walked right into his web.

I took the bait.

I fell for his cunning lines. His persuasive insistence. His charm.

Nothing but one giant act to cover up his incestuous cravings.

I’m stunned senseless.

I’ve never hated anyone in my life, but as of right now, I hate Jensen Mackey.

CHAPTER 11

JENSEN

Waverly disappeared after dinner tonight. I watched her clear the table with her mom and sister until Kath asked me to go outside and play with the kids.

“They need to get to know their big brother,” she said with a soft smile. “You need to get to know them too. You’re family.”

I put on a good face, slipped on my jacket, and headed outside to teach the small kids the joy of good, old-fashioned puddle jumping.

Mark can thank me later.

After a solid hour, Summer called all the kids inside and they filed to their respective houses for what I can only assume is their bedtime routine. Everyone seems to head to bed around seven thirty in this family.

I trek up the stairs after an hour of watching public television documentaries about dead presidents and pass by Waverly’s closed door. I knock lightly and hold my ear up against it.

“Go away, Jensen.”

“How’d you know?” I whisper through the closed door.

It’s silent on the other side, but my feet cement to the floor. I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got all night. My devious mind doesn’t shut off until half-past midnight, most nights.

The door swings open. She’s standing there in floral pajamas, her hair piled on top of her head and her face scrubbed clean. A small bedside lamp illuminates her otherwise dark room, and a book is lying open-faced on her bedspread.

“You always bother me this time of night.” There’s an auditory huff in her hushed words.

“I bother you? I thought you enjoyed it.”

“Never.”

“Lying is a sin.”

She squints, a feeble attempt at a dirty look. It’s cute at best. A wasted effort. “Go to bed, Jensen.”

She tries to shut the door in my face, but I block it with my body. I step inside, one foot on her blue carpet. “I’m not tired. Are you tired?”

“Exhausted.”

“You hide it well.”

“What do you want?” Her crystal eyes lock into mine. I like her this way—feisty. Feisty Waverly is sexy as fuck.

“I want to talk.” I stand firm.

She studies my face, and maybe she’s trying to summon strength from her God or whatever, but she and I both know I’ll knock down any walls she tries to build in two seconds flat.