Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Time passes like one cruel son of a bitch.
It’s been decades since the last time Angela Sanderson patched me up. And now she’s on her deathbed, while I’m taking this kit out for her grown daughter with a hundred awkward feelings between us, all while her youngest is about to get hitched to a giant asshole and start an entirely new stage of her life.
Funny how everything changes and mutates yet still stays the same.
Tucking the box under my arm, I head into the living room and sink down on the sofa next to Ophelia.
She glances at the tackle box. For a moment, her expression softens as she brushes her fingers over the top.
I can tell what she’s thinking.
Most of the time, I can read her too well.
She’s one of the few people here who makes sense to me, until she doesn’t when she gets all pissed off and I have no idea what the hell I did.
But right now, it’s not hard to tell she’s sinking into those same memories.
The same memories that mean even when it’s just the two of us, we’re never alone. Not when we’re haunted by the same nagging ghosts.
“Remember the tree house?” she asks softly.
I look up.
“No ‘GURLS’ allowed,” I mutter, stressing the way we butchered the spelling. I gently brush her hand aside to flip the first aid kit open. “Except you. We made a one-time exception for the gentleman’s club.”
She laughs—and why the hell do I love that sound so much?
“Lucky me. But you said I wasn’t really a girl, right?” She pokes my arm just above my wrist. “Jackass.”
“Woman, that was almost thirty years ago. You were barely a toddler then,” I point out with a snort. “You were a baby. Not a girl.”
“And you and Ethan couldn’t spell ‘girl’ to save your stupid lives,” she retorts.
I lift my head, eyeing her skeptically—only to find her watching me with this almost challenging smile that makes it impossible for me not to smile back.
For just a moment, I stop and drink her in.
So delicate, yet so grounded and down-to-earth.
She’s completely goddamned beautiful, and while she looks like her ma, there’s also something else there entirely.
Something I can’t pin down except knowing she probably inherited it from the unknown man who fathered both her and Ros.
With her blonde hair loose and cascading down around her face, her cheeks flushed, she looks like some kind of angel who crossed over into mundane life.
Yeah, I know how fucked up that is to say.
This sweet thing who’d give me a sugar rush forever instead of the bratty little hellion who occupies my thoughts every waking moment since she showed up again.
I’m a little helpless as I linger on her mouth.
That pink, soft mouth that’d feel like pure candy wrapped around any man’s dick.
I know.
I know I shouldn’t go there.
That lucky bastard who found out? He damn sure isn’t me.
Not after I trampled her heart and still can’t spend more than an hour with her without something combusting to shit.
I swallow a growl and remind myself to cool it, jerking my gaze away so I can dig through the kit until I find a little tube of anti-inflammatory cream.
“You want to tell me what happened? Start at the beginning.” I reach for her closest arm.
“Huh?” She blinks like she’s just snapped awake, then clears her throat and looks away. “Okay. Right. Um. So, I was out bringing in the trash bins and raking a few leaves because last I remember, Mrs. Appleberry will call the HOA if they’re out past sunset. I mean, if she’s still alive—”
“She is,” I snort, smoothing the cream on her bruises. I’ll photograph them after I’m sure the numbing cream is doing its work. It won’t have a visible effect at first to count as tampering with evidence. “Called the HOA on me last week because my grass was a quarter inch high, and she doesn’t even live on my street.”
“But she loves her evening walks, bless her heart,” Ophelia says dryly. “But yeah, I was just bringing the bins in and then there was this guy. I don’t know where he came from. Really tall, scary-looking. Older. Grey hair. Crazy part is, he was wearing a suit. Almost looked like some kind of butler, but he was also wild. Totally rocked the mad scientist vibe. He scared the crap out of me. Thought it was some weird Halloween thing when he came barreling in looking like Lurch—until it obviously wasn’t.”
“Lurch?”
“The butler from The Addams Family?”
“Oh.”
That’s mighty interesting.
My brain snaps back to the man who was standing on the street staring at me the other day with Nell.
If there’s a connection, it’s not much relief.
If I’m right and that guy works up at the big house, I like it even less.
“What the hell did he want?” I ask, keeping my focus on my hands as I turn her arm to make sure I didn’t miss a spot before reaching to start on her other arm.