Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Tall and gangly like teen boys sometimes were, with a shock of dark blond hair, looking sadly at me as he took my rejection.
Sigh.
“You’re the police,” I mumbled.
Jamie smiled. “Sure am. Are you feeling a little better? There’s an ambulance on its way.”
“I’m fine. I don’t need an ambulance.” I brushed my cheeks and tried to get up, but my legs were weak, and I stumbled.
Jamie reached for me and helped me to my feet. “I’d say sit down, but…”
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. “Outside. I need some fresh air.”
Jamie helped me out to the veranda, guiding me to sit down on the steps. “Do you have anything in there for some water?”
“What do you think?” I snorted, leaning forwards. “There’s some in my car, if I can have that? My keys are just inside.”
He ducked back in, and my car beeped a moment later. I buried my face in my hands as he walked past me.
This was a dream, right? A bad dream?
Declan Tierney wasn’t dead in my sunroom. I hadn’t just had a panic attack. This was all a bad, bad dream, and I’d get pinched and—
“What are you doing?”
There was no mistaking that voice.
That voice wasn’t just familiar. It was one I’d know from a million miles away.
One that, a mere few years ago, I’d have given anything to hear again.
Today? Not so much.
“Getting her some water,” Jamie replied. “She’s just had a panic attack. Here, Charlotte.”
I peered up at him. “Thank you,” I said scratchily, taking the half-empty bottle from him. My lips were dry and chapped, and my throat was raw from the scream I’d let rip when I saw—
Well.
It.
I glugged down several mouthfuls of the lukewarm water before shakily putting the bottle down on the step next to me.
“Better?” Jamie asked softly.
I nodded. I wasn’t sure I could talk—partly because I was in some kind of shock, and partly because I knew that if I did, I’d end up having to talk to Noah, and I hadn’t even looked at him yet.
If he was here, that meant only one thing.
He was a police officer.
And he was about to be all up in my business.
I watched TV. I knew how this went. The one who finds a body is always the first suspect, and I’d had a very public disagreement with Declan some sixteen hours ago.
The odds were not in my favour.
And, also, it was Noah.
The only man I’d ever loved.
My first boyfriend. My first kiss. My first… bedmate.
All in this very building.
Who had I hurt? Why did someone have it out for me? This probably wasn’t the best time to start a woe-is-me rant given there was a dead man not too far away from me, but honestly?
I’d just found that dead man.
If there was ever a time to be slightly overdramatic and woe-is-me, it was right now. There would never be a more appropriate time.
“Lottie?” Noah said quietly. His voice was warm, smooth, soft, like an enveloping hug that could wash all your worries away.
For a moment, everything came rushing back. Him telling me he loved me; me leaving; us pretending that conversation never happened until he finally stopped replying to my texts.
The way my heart had broken into so many pieces that I, an eighteen-year-old expert on all things life, was sure it would never, ever be able to be put back together.
It had been, mostly. Over time, my heart had healed, although I’d accepted there’d always be a little Noah-shaped hole there. It was a hole I was willing to live with because back then, I’d been sure I’d never see him again.
And now he was here.
In front of me.
Because someone was dead in my bed and breakfast.
Bed and breakfast?
More like dead and breakfast.
I snorted.
“Are you all right?” Noah asked.
My cheeks reddened, and I finally looked up. He was everything I remembered, but somehow, so much more. He was just as tall as I’d remembered, but he’d grown into that height at some point over the past decade. He’d filled out in the delectable kind of way that only happened to movie stars—I’m looking at you, Hemsworth—but he’d retained everything that made him… him.
His thick, dark hair was slightly longer on top than it was around the sides, and the longer bits looked a shade or two lighter when the sun hit it. His eyes were the colour of moss, a deep, dark green that was both warm and somehow cold at the same time, and he had the kind of gaze that pierced into your soul. Where he’d once had a clean, sharp jaw, he now had a shadow of stubble darkening it, and there was something about a beard that made a man infinitely hotter.
And this man did not need to be more handsome than he already was.
I cursed myself for thinking about that when I was in this situation, but honestly, focusing on something else wasn’t the worst thing in the world to be doing right now.