His to Own (Carmel Springs Book 1)

Prologue

I'd learn a long time ago how to drown out the noise. I wasn't here to engage in small talk because I had nothing to say. I wasn't here to listen to any town gossip because I didn't care to hear it. I wasn't here to make friends because none of these people were worth being friends with.

I was here to work.

That's it, that's all.

I was here for the same reason that I'd been showing up five days a week for the past ten years. I was here to earn enough money to support myself, but that wasn't the only reason that I was here. I was still here because I wanted nothing more than to leave this town, but I couldn't do that without money. Oh, I could get up and leave with what I had, but I absolutely refused to fail once I left this town. I refused to end up a homeless failure just because I hadn't been patient enough.

Nevertheless, reality was a brutal bitch, and she had no sympathy for best-laid plans. Just when I thought that I had enough money to make my dreams come true, my car's engine would stall. Just when I thought that I had enough money to leave Carmel Springs, pneumonia would find me, causing me to miss work and acquire doctor bills that I couldn't afford. Now, to people that earned more than minimum wage, life's unexpected obstacles wouldn't necessarily be a problem...well, I didn't earn more than minimum wage. Sure, the tips helped some, but not much. Considering that the people of this town didn't feel like I deserved anything extra, I was lucky to get what I did.

See, ten years later, I was still the town slut. I was still the girl from the trailer park that'd always had loose morals. I was still the girl that had given her favors to whichever boy looked my way back in high school. Sure, there were some townsfolk that felt sorry for me because they'd known my parents and hadn't expected me to fare any better, but those same townsfolks had still done nothing to help my situation. The good people of Carmel Springs liked to show up at church every Sunday, but they didn't like doing much else to get into God's good graces. As if God couldn't see them outside that church building, they went about their business as if their gossip did no harm.

As for friends, I didn't have any. I'd lost the only few that I'd had back in high school. Not ready or willing to fight the popular crowd, I'd been left to fight my demons on my own. No one had wanted to be associated with the easy girl from the trailer park. High school was where the poor and unpopular kids still had hope for better lives, so no one had wanted me and my drama dragging them down back then.

Did I blame them?

Back then, I had.

Back then, I'd never felt so abandoned as I'd had when I'd lost my few friends.

However, ten years later, viewing life as an adult, I no longer resented those that had chosen to save themselves. Yeah, I still stayed away from them if I saw them on the street, but I no longer judged them as harshly as everyone still judged me.

Nevertheless, I didn't let my hate for the town-or its people-keep me from showing up to work every day. I knew that a lot of people thought I kept my head down out of shame, but that wasn't true. I served these people with my head down because I was afraid that any sort of eye contact might make the truth of how I felt about these people fly out of my mouth with no regard to how I needed my job.

Yeah, being a diner waitress wasn't glamorous, but I'd gotten this job immediately after graduating high school and its kept me housed, fed, and clothed ever since. Sure, my house was a trailer, my food was basic, and my clothes were thrift-shop quality, but I wasn't homeless, starving, or cold. I could still appreciate my blessings, even if they were meager ones.

So, even though I was as frugal as I could be with my money, it took a long time to save the kind of money that I needed to start a new life somewhere else. While it sounded incredible to believe that it'd taken me ten years to save up anything significant, I knew that there were a lot of people out there that understood exactly what I was dealing with. There were more poor people in this country than there were rich, and the struggle was real. Still, I might be poor, but I wasn't stupid. When I finally saved enough money to leave Carmel Springs, my new life was going to start on a strong and positive note.

My immense desire to leave this town was also why I didn't date. It made no sense to start something when I had no intentions of staying in this toxic town. Plus, no one wanted to date me anyway. Oh, there were plenty of men that wanted to buy me a beer, but that was about it. I'd always been good for one thing and one thing only, and the men in this town weren't shy about reminding me of that.

Maybe being homeless in another town wouldn't be so bad after all.