Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 60905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
His biceps stretched the sleeves of his flannel shirt. His arms weren’t those of a bodybuilder, but they were sure ripped enough to catch a woman’s eye.
The smile that he aimed at me made my heart rate increase, and I couldn’t imagine how he was still single. Unless it was because no woman could find him out here.
“Morning,” he said.
“Good morning.” The events of last night flooded my brain and I felt shy—which wasn’t a sensation I was very familiar with. Maybe I’d have to ask Penny how to deal with it later. It was her default mode.
“How’d you sleep?”
The corners of my mouth twitched upward. “I think you know.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, probably. You were out seconds after the main event.”
Though he didn’t look upset, guilt hit. “I’m sorry, I should have—”
“That was the whole point of the exercise, remember?” He cocked his head to the side. “To help you sleep deeply. Any job worth doing is worth doing well.”
The smirk on his face told me he knew he’d done well but that he wasn’t going to be obnoxious about it. My words from yesterday echoed in my head. He definitely was a hard person to hate.
“So what’s on the agenda for this morning?” I asked. “Another hike?”
“More or less.” He disappeared into the cottage and returned holding a plastic case and two long poles.
I took a step back. “Please tell me those are hiking poles.”
He grinned. “Sure. Hiking poles with a cork and a hook at the end.”
“I don’t fish.”
“You also said you don’t cook, yet you helped with dinner the other night.”
“I helped with the dinner for the cats,” I corrected.
“That still counts.” Brady closed the door to the smokehouse behind him. “By the way, thank you for feeding those guys last night.”
“You’re welcome. They were pretty happy to see me.”
“I bet. Did my note fall on the floor or something?”
“Yes.”
Brady shook his head. “Cole still should’ve known they needed to be fed. He’s not the biggest cat person, though. Sees them as pests. My Gramps did, too.”
It was hard to think of the purring little creatures as pests. They’d swarmed around my ankles last night like I was their savior. “It sounds like you turned out more like your grandmother and Cole like your grandfather.”
“Yeah, basically.” He tried to hand me a fishing pole, but I dodged out of the way.
“I don’t fish.” I said it more emphatically this time.
He rolled his eyes and handed me the tackle box, which I reluctantly took. At least it didn’t have any hooks dangling off it. “Do you eat fish?”
“Of course.” Okay, most of it was sushi, not what you might catch round here, but that still counted.
“Then let’s go catch us some trout for breakfast.”
He took off toward the path we’d taken yesterday, and I had to hurry to catch up to him. “Fish? For breakfast?”
He shot me a look and shook his head. “You really are a city girl, aren’t you?”
“Never claimed otherwise.” I did my best to match his long strides.
“Well then, city girl, you’re in for a treat.”
Trout didn’t sound like much of a treat. Then again, he’d given me a massive treat last night, so maybe I could extend the benefit of the doubt to him.
We’d only been walking for a few minutes when Brady veered off onto a smaller path I hadn’t noticed yesterday. After what I judged was the equivalent of a half-dozen city blocks, we arrived at a small lake.
Brady strode onto a wooden dock, but I paused a moment to take in the scenic picture our surroundings made. The lake wasn’t big, but it was almost perfectly round, lined by trees with their leaves blowing in the wind. This was the kind of view these guys needed to put up on their website.
“Why is there a dock if there aren’t any boats?” I joined Brady on the small wooden structure.
“They’re over there.” He pointed toward a large tree not too far away. Two small vessels, a canoe and a rowboat, if I wasn’t mistaken, were upside down and leaning against the trunk.
“Oh.” Absentmindedly, I handed him his tackle box as I tried to imagine what it would be like to relax on a boat on this serene little lake. It would be nothing like Lake Michigan with its sizable waves.
I knew nothing about paddling a rowboat or a canoe, but it seemed like a pretty pleasant way to pass the time.
Brady knelt down and rummaged through the tackle box. “We can go out on the lake some other time.” He seemed to have read my mind. “Today, our mission is to catch and cook some food before the others have to resort to cereal out of a box.”
Clearly, the chef in him disapproved of that idea, but cereal sounded pretty damn good compared to trout. However, I didn’t tell him that—I was too busy enjoying watching the competent way he moved. Soon, he had both fishing poles locked and loaded, or whatever it was one did with fishing poles.