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)
She felt like her damn life was ending and Heather was throwing her a life raft. “Why would you help me like this?”
“Because once I needed a place to go, too.” Heather squeezed her hand. “Also, the town I live in is kind of known for being welcoming to anyone who needs to find some bliss. Let’s do this. Let’s move you into my motel room and check you out of yours so even if someone found out your name, it will look like you’ve left. You can stay there or with Josh and Grim.”
“I’m supposed to go to Austin with them this weekend. There’s a club there,” she said, her mind whirling. Should she believe this woman? Or was she making a terrible mistake? She’d handed over almost all of her cash. She would get tips from her shift this afternoon, but it wouldn’t be enough to get her out of Willow Fork.
Panic threatened to overtake her, but Heather was right there, telling her to breathe.
“Go with them. Let me work some things from my side,” Heather said.
They started to walk toward the town square with its shops and restaurants, where people were out walking dogs and kids played on the swings in the park. It was all so normal. Normal people living normal lives. They wouldn’t be happy every moment. They would suffer tragedies, get sick from time to time, but they had the potential to be content.
She would never find that if she didn’t take a risk.
“I didn’t divorce him.”
Heather stopped. “I know. You ran for your life, and whatever you had to do to get away is fine with me, but we’re going to have to talk about it someday. Not now. When you’re ready to tell me the whole story, I’ll be ready to listen.”
Nic felt tears caress her cheeks.
A buzzing sound broke up the quiet moment, and Heather sighed as she pulled her cell out. “I’m sorry. I have to take this. It’s my son.”
Nic nodded. “Go on. I’ll wait here and then we can go to the store if you like. Although you might find they’re friendlier if I’m not with you.”
Heather’s nose wrinkled. “Hush with that. I’ll be right back.” She slid her finger across the screen. “Hey, sweetie. What’s going on?”
She began to talk to her son and Nic found a bench. She sat down and watched the world flow around her, wondering if there was a place for her in it.
* * * *
Josh looked out over the office space on the second floor of the building where the Barnes-Fleetwood Collective’s administrative work was done. His fathers had purchased the building on Main Street years before and changed the former mixed-use office center into an ultramodern space. Not that one could tell from the outside. His mother had taken over the Willow Fork Historical Society when he was a kid in what the town liked to call the Coup of the Century. It wasn’t really a coup. It was a case of the society needed money and his mother had it.
Sometimes he wondered if his dad thought they’d made the wrong play. He’d been unwilling to give the society a dime if his wife wasn’t the chairman of the board. His mom had turned right around and denied all the changes his dad wanted to make to the façade of the building.
That had probably been one hell of a spanking.
He groaned. He shouldn’t have even thought that.
“Hey, Josh. I set the reports on your desk, confirmed your reservations for the club this weekend, and pulled the employment files you asked for. Are we finally firing Alyssa?” His assistant stood in the doorway, a mug of coffee in her hand. Sandy was more of an office manager, and she never let him forget the fact that she’d changed his diapers when he was a baby.
He wondered what it was like for people who lived in cities where not every citizen remembered how you used to accidently pee on them as a small infant.
And the coffee was for her, not him. He’d been told in the beginning that he should get his own.
Now his parents were another story. Sandy would trip over her own feet to make sure Abigail Barnes-Fleetwood had her coffee exactly how she wanted it and made sure there was always Coke in the fridge because that’s what the dads preferred.
“I’m reviewing a couple of things,” he replied, turning from the window and moving back to the big desk that his father had occupied until he’d decided Josh was up to the task of running the business portion of Barnes-Fleetwood.
The day he and Olivia had taken over, Jack Barnes had saluted his kids and run out of the office after declaring himself a free man.
Sandy’s brow rose, and she adjusted her comfortable cardigan. She’d been with the company for over twenty years, and sometimes Josh thought the only reason his dad didn’t watch them like a hawk was he knew Sandy would step in if anything went wrong. “Josh, everyone knows what she did to your new girlfriend.”