Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112762 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
My concern grew. This information only gave credence to Sloane’s story about him trapping her against her cart. The thought of it made me want to rip the bastard’s hands off.
“Get a feeling around him,” I hedged, not wanting to share any more of Sloane’s business. Especially not something that affected the job she depended upon. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
For a while after that, Brodan distracted me, catching me up on the whisky venture he and Lachlan had undertaken. They were opening a distillery outside Ardnoch, something that would take a good few years to develop, but Brodan was enjoying the process. We talked about finding somewhere to watch the NFL kickoff game next month since we’d both gotten into American football while living in LA. It had been awhile since we’d caught a game. I told him about Chloe, a younger woman I’d hooked up with in Inverness. She was a hairdresser. She was also a mistake. I didn’t know if it was that she was too young to understand the nuance of casual sex or if it was my fault for going back for a second round. Probably a bit of both. But now the lass was pestering me constantly, and not answering her calls and texts didn’t seem to send the message it usually did.
Brodan was ribbing me about it when Monroe called. Like a puppy on a leash, he finished his pint and left me in the pub, happy to be called home. Part of me felt smug that I didn’t need to deal with someone checking in on me, wondering where I was, what I was doing. But Brodan was a different man from the one he’d been when we arrived in Ardnoch. He’d been a haunted man back then. If I was honest, it wasn’t just our Scottish blood that bonded us. We didn’t talk about it, but we’d recognized something broken in each other. Confiding our secrets came later once we’d built trust. But Brodan had since faced his ghosts.
I might have been a soldier and Brodan an actor … but which one of us was braver? The one who worked through his shit to make a life with someone? Or the one who pretended his ghosts had stayed buried?
The thought fucked me up.
As if on cue, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out to see another text from Chloe.
Hey, I dnt no if ur gettin ma texts bt am free 2nite. U up 4 it? xx
I sighed heavily. I wasn’t one to pussyfoot around the truth, and I’d rather be cruel to be kind.
My thumbs flew over the keys.
Thanks for the good times but not interested in anything more.
A few seconds later, she texted back:
Bt I thnk we hve somthin good here xx
Irritation and guilt filled me as I replied:
Sorry, don’t feel that way. I won’t be in touch again. Wish you well.
What followed was a stream of abuse that killed my guilt. She called me every dirty name under the sun, one quick, misspelled angry text coming in after the other, until there were twenty unread texts sitting in my inbox.
My fault for not reading the lass correctly. She was too young. I shouldn’t have gone there. After throwing back the last of my ale, I blocked and deleted Chloe. Then I threw some cash on the bar for Jess, nodded at a local as I strolled out of the Gloaming, and tried to ignore the unease riding my shoulders.
I didn’t know why I felt so out of sorts.
I could have done with the distraction of sex tonight. Someone to release my tension on. Instead, I had no choice but to go home alone and take care of myself in the shower.
As I was chasing release, I didn’t think of Chloe. It wasn’t a faceless woman or a past lover. It was someone real whose naked body I could only imagine, whose smile lit up the fucking room, who came with a scream of my name in my fantasies. Her name released from my mouth on a hoarse shout as I climaxed around my fist.
That name echoed off the tiles, and I leaned my forehead against the damp ceramic as I caught my breath.
Sloane.
I squeezed my eyes shut again.
Fuck.
Good thing I was an expert at compartmentalization.
Just because I fantasized about a woman didn’t mean I wanted anything real from her. Fantasy and reality were easily separated.
I could force myself to forget coming to the fantasy of fucking Sloane Harrow.
And I knew I could because I’d been doing just that for the last nine months.
Five
SLOANE
A week passed. It lulled me into a false sense of security.
Using money I’d saved from my baking venture to send Callie to her first tae kwon do class, I was excited for her, despite my financial worries, when she returned home filled with hyper chatter about it. She’d loved it. She signed up and was now officially in training.