Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
“Aurora, you want to come over to my house for Thanksgiving?” Walter, a regular customer and friend, asked from across the shop where he was going through some fly-making materials that Clara had put on sale just that morning. “We always have plenty of food, and I have this nephew who could use a good woman in his life to straighten him out.”
“Your wife hasn’t straightened you out, and it’s been forty years,” I muttered, smiling at him slyly. This whole conversation was a perfect example of part of the reason why I’d been so happy lately. I had friends again.
“Listen here, child . . . my Betsy had no idea what she had in store for her. I’m a life project,” Walter shot back.
We all laughed.
Honestly, it wasn’t just Thanksgiving that had snuck up on me; October and most of November had too. Since the Hike from Hell that I’d overcome, time had blown by, especially the last three weeks.
Clara, her sister-in-law, Jackie, and I had gone camping once, even though it had been freezing. Amos tagged along with me to do random things, like going grocery shopping and playing Putt-Putt with Jackie one time, when his dad let him off the hook from being grounded. I’d gone snowboarding once more too, and I’d only busted my ass a few times. I hadn’t moved on from the bunny hill yet, but maybe next time I would.
Every day was just . . . good.
“You know I have almost zero experience driving in snow,” I reminded them.
“This isn’t really snow, Ora,” Jackie argued. “There’s only about an inch out there.”
That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that. But to me, who had only seen significant snow from the windows of a tour bus, a quarter of an inch was snow. Kaden avoided going on tour during the winter, after all. We had usually gone to Florida or California the minute the weather started to get cool. Some flurries had fallen in town over the last few weeks, but most of it had been focused in the mountains, leaving them capped and beautiful. “I know, I know. Either way, I’m putting people’s lives at risk just driving home, I feel like, but if I change my mind, I’ll give you a call for your address, deal?” I asked Walter right as the door opened.
“No, no, no, just come on over. I want you to meet—”
I glanced back toward the door to see a familiar figure in a thick dark jacket coming in, stomping his feet on the rug I shook out every hour if I had time.
And I smiled.
It was Rhodes.
Or as my heart recognized him as: one of the main reasons I’d been so happy over the last two months, even though I’d only seen him a total of seven times, including the two visits he’d squeezed in while he’d been working in Colorado Springs.
“—my nephew. Oh, how’s it going, Rhodes?” Walter asked as he caught sight of our new visitor.
Rhodes dipped his cute chin down, a little notch forming between his brows. “Well. How are you, Walt?” he greeted him.
How he knew people when he said about twenty words a day, depending on his mood, was beyond me.
“I’m doing just fine, apart from trying to convince Aurora here to come over to my house for Thanksgiving.”
My landlord’s hands went to his hips, and I was pretty sure his lips pressed together before he said, “Hmm.”
“Hi, Rhodes,” I called out.
Things were good between us. Since getting back, that something that I’d thought before had changed, had changed even more. It was like he’d gotten back and decided . . . something.
Some part of me knew that he wouldn’t have done everything he had for me and with me if he was indifferent, landlord or not. Friend or not. Finding people attractive was one thing. But liking other things about a person, their personalities, was something else entirely.
I wasn’t sure what exactly was going on; it felt different than friendship somehow, but I could see it in the way that he had accepted my hug that first day he’d gotten home and squeezed me back tightly. It was in the way he would touch my shoulders and my hand randomly. But mostly it was in the way that he talked to me. In the weight of that purple-gray gaze. I ate up every single word out of his mouth after dinner when we sat around the table, and he told me a lot of things.
Why he’d chosen the Navy—because he thought he loved the ocean. He didn’t anymore; he’d seen more of it than most people would in a lifetime.
That he’d had that Bronco since he was seventeen and had spent the last twenty-five years working on it.
That he’d lived in Italy, Washington, Hawaii, and all over the East Coast.