Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“My brother’s a peckerhead,” I enlightened him.
Apple’s face transformed into a brilliant smile.
“I knew that already. Are you ready to go?” He grinned.
I nodded, moving to the front door and looking at my brother warily.
“I won’t,” Ridley promised, almost sensing my disquiet.
I breathed a sigh of relief and walked out the door that Apple was holding open.
“What was that about?” Apple wondered as soon as we made it outside.
“That was me making sure my brother didn’t do anything stupid,” I informed him.
“What does he normally do?” He took my elbow and guided me down the walkway to his bike.
I bit my lip as I watched him get on.
He offered me his hand, and I smiled as I took it.
“Helmet!” Ridley bellowed from the front door.
I winced and looked at Apple.
He smiled.
“We’re just going down the road to my house,” he answered, not nearly as loud as Ridley had questioned him.
“I don’t care!” Ridley said rudely.
I patted Apple on the shoulder and mounted behind him.
“Go before he starts acting like an ass,” I ordered Apple.
Apple did, and I clutched him around the chest and laid my head on his shoulder.
Ridley was still screaming at us as we left, and I waved, using my middle finger to do it.
Ridley had the decency to laugh.
Apple never got up over fifteen miles an hour as we rode the short way to his house, and I found myself annoyed that the ride didn’t last longer.
Meaning I growled my disapproval.
“Did you just growl at me?” Apple questioned as he flipped the kickstand down on his bike.
I laughed.
“I wanted to ride longer,” I told him, explaining myself.
He patted my thigh and got off the bike, which seemed to be a signal for the dogs to come over and greet him.
“Sit,” Apple’s smooth, deep voice growled out.
The dogs, all five of them, sat.
And they were all massive, white, humongous, polar bear type things.
“Jesus,” I exclaimed. “These are freakin’ huge. What do they weigh, two hundred pounds?”
“Big Poppa is the biggest and oldest. He’s about one eighty. The rest trickle down from there,” he pointed, indicating the biggest.
“Wow,” I uttered. “That’s more than me.”
Apple’s grin was almost contagious and probably would have been had his laughter not been at the expense of my weight.
“Don’t even go there,” I ordered him.
He held his hands up.
“So what has your brother done to all your dates that you feel you have to gather a promise from him to make sure he behaves himself?” Apple asked, taking my hand and guiding me through the dogs that still hadn’t moved.
But they watched and wagged their long tails.
One such tail caught me on the back of one ankle, nearly throwing my leg out from under me.
Apple caught me before I could hit the ground, pulling me in front of him as he kept walking.
“Have you done that before?” I gasped on a breathless laugh.
Apple snorted.
“One or two times,” he answered, looking down into my eyes. “You have to be on your toes around them. They’re a little rambunctious when I allow them free time.”
“You allow them free time?” I quivered.
He nodded.
“They’re working dogs. That’s what they love to do,” he answered, sweeping his hands up over the farm.
I stopped and looked at it.
It was a big farm; I’d give him that.
He’d led me around the main house to the back of the house, where a large barn overlooked sprawling pasture land.
Cows milled about, eating grass in the back pasture while goats climbed on top of the small storage shed in the closer one.
“Are they okay up there?” I bit my lip worriedly.
“They are.” Apple promised. “Goats like to climb, and they’re escape artists. That’s why I have that ten-foot fence up, to keep them inside.”
I snickered.
“So where do the dogs go at night?” I turned to him. “Do they come in?”
“They patrol the pasture land for predators,” he pointed to the cows. “We have about a hundred acres that butt up to our land and run straight down this road until they hit the main highway.”
“Your land is the one behind ours?” I asked. “Is it your cow that keeps trying to come into our yard and eat our grass?”
“The grass is always greener on the other side,” he countered teasingly.
I snorted.
“Do you live there with your dad?” I asked him.
He pointed to the barn.
“I live there,” he jerked his chin. “There’s a one-bedroom apartment that the cow hands used to rotate in and out of each summer. It’s mine now.”
“That’s kind of cool,” I let my eyes linger on his lips. “Do you like it here?”
My eyes looked around the spread he and his father had, and I found that I quite liked it.
It was beautiful and peaceful, even if it did smell like a farm.
He shrugged.
“It’s okay,” he said. “At one point, I was so used to living in the desert, the thought of a tiny one-bedroom cracker box in California seemed large. Now this…this is paradise compared to both of the last two living situations I had.”