Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Now, here we were, and I couldn’t tell where Dean’s head was at.
Over the last few months, we’d had some intense discussions. Out of those discussions grew the best sort of friendship imaginable—one forged by the hell we’d been through together. I guess you could say that our bond, this friendship we had, was one of the few bright spots to come out of this whole fucking nightmare.
July had been taken from us.
My fault.
He’d smiled a total of five times over the last three months, and each of those times had been because of my son.
Nathan.
I’d neglected him too.
It was always someone.
First July, now Nathan.
I just couldn’t fucking win. There was always a hard decision I had to make, and I hated that I was always being put in that position in the first place.
Dean’s dark brown eyes came up to mine, and I could read in them the anger that was simmering just below the surface.
“You’re never going to believe it, but it was Erin that called it in about hearing screams,” I said, surprising the shit out of him.
He’d told me the tale of Erin, the crusty old lady that’d made it no secret that she hated him after he’d been forced to take her to the hospital during a routine call.
In the past month, he ate dinner at her restaurant a few times a week and often had lunch there, too.
She’d felt sorry for him, that was for sure.
I’d never seen him and her make any sort of contact other than that, but it was easy to see that she felt deeply for him.
Hell, the whole fucking town did.
Everyone was rooting for him to get his woman—my sister— back and now I could finally say that he’d accomplished that.
July may be badly hurt, even a little bit broken. But what she wasn’t was down.
My sister would come back swinging, I’d put money on that fact.
“You’re shitting me,” Dean said, surprise apparent in his voice.
I shook my head. “Her house is about a…”
Dean held his hand up. “Oh, I know where her house is. Remember?”
I grinned, the first one to grace my face all day. “Yeah, I do.”
“I can’t fucking believe it.” He stood up and started to pace.
I watched him walk, and the men that were across the room watched him as well, both the men I’d called brothers over the last five years, and the new ones I’d made friends with during the last few months—the men of Kilgore Fire.
“The rest you already know. She called the cops—and Peek, of all people,” I shook my head in confusion.
“Why Peek?” Dean stopped pacing to look at me.
I smiled. “He does her ink.”
Dean’s laughter was a pleasant surprise. “I’m going to have to thank them both. That ought to be fun.”
I grinned. “It should. I think you should let us all watch while you eat crow.”
Dean sighed and started pacing again.
“What?” I asked.
“I feel like I should be out there looking for her still. It hasn’t sunk in that she’s actually here. Safe!” he admitted.
I nodded. I felt much the same way.
But I actually did have something to do.
The case I’d been involved in before July had been kidnapped—the one that was the reason I’d asked her to talk to Barrett in the first place—had blown wide open when we found July.
A truck driver had been the owner of the house where we’d found July. He was Jensen’s brother and that relationship gave us the direct tie-in we needed to the stupid mother fucker.
Barrett had no direct connection to any of this yet, but we were hoping that between July and Raven, another woman who was rescued with July, we’d get one. Likely, we’d get more than enough. We just needed to get both women awake and talking first.
My phone vibrated and I pulled it out of my pocket, my eyes lighting when I read my boss’ text.
“Gotta go,” I said. “Let me know the instant anything changes, okay?”
Dean’s eyes narrowed on me.
“Where are you going in such a hurry?” he asked.
He looked fucking mean.
Even in bright purple scrub bottoms, he looked like he could rip someone’s throat out.
He’d changed a lot over the last four months.
No longer was he clean-shaven. He had a beard that rivaled mine and a scowl that never left his face.
His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, and my eyes were once again drawn to his arms.
He had a couple of tattoos on his arms. One of which was hash marks on his right wrist counting the number of days July had been gone. It started at his wrist and had climbed up to his forearm.
A grim reaper that was placed on one of our trips north after a sighting took up much of his left forearm, surrounded by a bunch of curly lettering I hadn’t asked the meaning of.