Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 99(@200wpm)___ 79(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 99(@200wpm)___ 79(@250wpm)___ 66(@300wpm)
In the woods on her way to her grandmother’s house, she’s alone, a wolf stands in her way.
Good thing I’m there. A real lumberjack to save the day.
The sparks fly – I’m making her cookie mine. Now.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
HOOD
I hammer the nails in, finishing up the last bit of work we have planned for today.
A new barn for the Crumble ranch. The operation has always been expanding, but usually we got some outside contractors to come in and build the new homes for our cows. Since I’d been leaning into construction as a long term career prospect, I figure I’d contribute to the ranch before I moved on and made my own way.
Rainier would be the one taking over the farm when the old man steps down, and he’s well on his way to being the new Crumble family patriarch. It’s the blessing of being the first born and all that good stuff, I guess.
It’s not that I’m being forced out or anything either. My father always talked up the Crumble farm as something that my brother, my sister, and I would all inherit. That it belongs to all of us. Rainier has never shown me anything but absolute respect in the business sense, most of our spats just being typical sibling rivalry.
I look over at him, and out comes his girl. Sugar. A hot little thing, he chuckles as he goes to wrap his hands around her curvaceous hips and they share a kiss. The feeling of jealousy is strong within me, and if I were a lesser man I’d probably whine and complain.
But I don't. Rainier found love. I didn’t. That’s just how it is.
A truck rolls up to the farm, and the doors open. My sister Cookie is one of our visitors, and she’s blushing red. Opposite of her is Baker, her own new squeeze.
Almost simultaneously, my siblings had found love. Right around Christmas too, absolutely saccharine and so sweet it’s almost sickening. In the month and a half since then, the lovey-doveyness hasn’t faded.
The four of them come together, and start having a chat as I put away my tools.
“Hood!” Cookie calls out. “We’re trying to decide where we want to go for Valentine’s day dinner. Come over and join the discussion, would you?”
I let out a long sigh. Valentine's Day. Because what I need is an extra dose of feeling lonely on top of it all.
“I wouldn’t want to mess up the chemistry of your double date,” I shout back with a smile. “Besides, I’m pretty happy going up to my cabin and just having poor lonely guy pizza.”
“Don’t make yourself a stranger, brother,” Rainier says. “You’re still family, no matter what happens.”
“And I don’t doubt a word you say,” I reply as I bring my bag to my snowmobile and tie it down. “But Being a fifth wheel ain’t my thing. I’ll see you four around. Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you.”
I rev up my vehicle, and I can’t hear what they say in response. Probably just wishing me well. There isn’t any cruelty in any of their words. I’m happy that my brother and sister found love. But it just makes everything I know about my future even more clear.
The Crumble ranch home would always be central to our family, but Rainier is the eldest son. He’d stay there, managing our dairy farm for the decades to come, calling it home, building his personal family. I expect countless nieces and nephews from the two of them, and as accepted as I would be, I do not want to be that weird live in Uncle.
Cookie wouldn’t be there to alleviate it by being a live-in Aunt either. Especially not when she found Baker. Baker’s pretty well off, and would be having his own growing homestead, an extension of the Crumble legacy even if under another name. Both of them were growing up and entering the next stages of their life as family men and women and I want to join them, but well, love doesn’t exactly grow on these trees.
I’m zooming up into the mountains. The snow is super thick this time of year, and I get around via snowmobile mostly. It allows me some freedom and independence, and still lets me feel like a real mountain man. Sure, Baker and Rainier’s trucks have chains on their tires, but that won’t let them cut through a blizzard like I can.
It’s not long until I arrive at the cabin I’d been working on the last couple years. This is the first year where it’s been solid and comfortable, and truly capable of being called a home. Carpentry and construction have been a passion of mine, and I thought about moving into the work on a professional level, but I’m still needed at the Crumble Dairy Farm, if only for now.