Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 133849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Grim frowned. “Intended?”
A low groan came from Josh. “It was Alyssa. Apparently she thinks at some point I’m going to come around, and I shouldn’t like have a life until I’m ready for the vanilla picket fence wedding she’s planning.”
“But we haven’t seen Alyssa in months,” Grim argued. “Why would she think that?”
“She’s obviously delusional.” And would probably cause trouble if Nicole was staying around long term. Of course, all of this would be a problem in the long term. She was sure Josh’s parents would want to know about any woman who was with their son for more than a few weeks. People like this could hire private investigators because they wanted to keep their kids safe from people like her.
But it wasn’t like she was meeting their folks. She was here for breakfast and sex, and there would likely be a football game in there somewhere since it was Sunday in Texas. She glanced over to the big house. It was probably a five-minute walk away. They would hole up in this house and likely no one would even know she was here.
So she should relax.
“Do I need to talk to her?” Grim asked.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what Grim would have to say to Alyssa. “No. I handled it. Everything’s fine, and the entire church downtown knows I don’t care what they think of me.”
“What exactly happened?” Grim’s brow furrowed in obvious consternation.
She didn’t want to go over it. Now that she was here, she wanted their time together to be peaceful. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I thought you guys had left me high and dry. I slept really hard and don’t remember Josh telling me you had to leave. So I woke up and decided to head over to the café to see if Christa needed any help with the church crowd. I was walking with the lady in the room next to me when the Alyssa person decided she could scare me. She can’t. I’ve been around way bigger bullies than her.”
She’d been around truly dangerous people. She’d seen real evil. Alyssa was a selfish princess who thought the world revolved around her. She was young. The world would grind her down and she would either figure it out and grow or become bitter and take it out on everyone around her. Likely the latter.
“You said she called her out in front of everyone.” Grim looked Josh’s way, but his arm went around her shoulders.
He was such a warm man. She found herself leaning into him, but she didn’t think this was as big a deal as Josh seemed to. “It was some church people. And Heather. She’s the new girl. She was surprisingly cool about it. She seems real solid.”
Heather hadn’t looked embarrassed at all. She’d stayed at Nicole’s side rather than trying to get out of the line of fire.
“It was the entire congregation,” Josh explained. “There’s going to be gossip.”
Grim cursed under his breath. “Then my father’s going to know.”
“It’s not like we were going to hide her,” Josh replied.
She wasn’t sure she completely understood, but she needed to calm her guys down. “I’m sure everyone has forgotten about it by now.”
“Nicole.” Olivia was jogging across the gorgeously green lawn, waving a hand. She was in jeans and a T-shirt, her auburn hair shoved into a baseball cap. “Holy crap. I got off the phone with Emmy. Did you pull out Alyssa’s hair? I knew it was fake. No one’s hair grows a foot in a month. Wait. That sounds like I’m shaming but I’m not. Like girl, do you, but she lies about it and makes other women feel like shit, so I can be happy you pulled her extensions out.”
“What?” Nicole stepped away from Grim, surprised to see Olivia. Way more surprised to hear what she was saying.
Olivia was out of breath when she finally made it to the small house. “I just got off the phone, and it’s all anyone is talking about. How Alyssa tried to pull her mean-girl act but Nicole punched her in the face and pulled her hair out. Did you keep it? Like a trophy? Because I would.”
“I didn’t punch anyone.” What had happened? How did Olivia know? “I talked to her about twenty minutes ago.”
“And then I heard Josh told everyone he would wreck their lives if they said another word about you.” Olivia was grinning like this was the best thing that had ever happened. “And the preacher at the First Baptist Church held a session to pray for Josh’s soul. Now I heard that, but I also heard one where he’s actually trying to find a way to exorcise you. I don’t think he knows what that really means.”
“It means he thinks I’m the devil, and he’s right when it comes to this,” Josh said.