Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 91937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91937 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“That fucking sheriff is as shady as they come.” My father tells me something that everyone knows.
“He is, but,” I start, “hard to fight black-and-white things without tainting himself. Is he willing to go down for the Cartwrights? Because that is how far I’m willing to push things.” I look at my father, making sure he sees how serious I am. “And I know that this is going to piss them off, so I’m fine with stepping away from the business.”
“What?” Autumn gasps. “Why would you even think that?”
“You’ve worked your ass off to bring us back to this place.” I put my hand on hers when I see tears well in her eyes. “It’s not fair to you to lose all of that because of my decision or my actions.” I look at both of them. “You hear chatter?” I look back at my father. “I hear it too, and I see it. The orders slowed down for the past two weeks.”
Autumn waves her fork in the air. “And now they have picked back up.”
“Yeah, because you had to call and beg them not to listen to anyone else,” I tell her something she doesn’t know I heard the other day. “So like I said, I’m okay with stepping down.” Even though I know I shouldn’t let them get to me, I won’t do this to my sister again. She worked too hard to bring us to where we are now.
“I don’t give a flying fuck!” my father roars out. “You are not stepping away from the business that you carried on your back for the past fucking eight years because of those fucking people. I swear to everything, I’m coming back to haunt them.”
“Dad!” Autumn slaps the table. “Don’t say that.”
“I’m going to say that,” he fires back. “When it’s my time to go, and I go, I’m coming back just to fucking haunt them.”
“Can we not talk about you dying?” Autumn asks with tears now escaping her eyes. “At least not until you meet my child and tell him or her stories about how amazing I am.” She tries to fill the sadness of her sentence with a joke, but she sobs out the rest and she gets up off her chair and walks over to him. “Promise me you won’t leave until then.” She doesn’t wait for him to answer. She just turns to me. “Now, you better not say that shit again,” she snaps. “I’m not supposed to get upset.” She kisses our dad’s cheek. “Charlie is going to hear about this.”
“I’m shaking in my boots,” my father tells her, trying to joke with her and cheer her up.
“I’m going to go freshen up.” She glares at me. “And maybe make room for another piece of pie to make me feel better.”
“That’s for Dad,” I remind her, and she ignores me as she walks back into the house. Only when my father knows she’s out of the way does he start talking.
“You know there is a little boy involved in this,” he states, and all I can do is nod at him. “This isn’t just you and a girl. It’s bigger.”
“Dad, you don’t have to tell me,” I assure him and then look down at the table. “It’s different with her,” I admit. “I can’t pinpoint when it happened. All I can say is, everything is so clear now. Why I never got attached to anyone before; it was because I was waiting for them. My heart knew the minute I saw the two of them moving in next door to me that this was different. My head didn’t.” I smile softly. “Took a couple of minutes for my head to catch up.”
“Did your head finally catch up?” he asks, and I smile at him.
“All parts are on the same page,” I tell him. “Fuck, Dad, being a part of Wyatt’s life. Teaching him stuff, watching him learn from me, and then succeed in doing it. I can’t even put into words how that makes me feel.” I smile. “Fuck, I feel like I am literally the king of the world.”
“Now you know how I felt every time you walked into the room,” he says softly. “I can leave this earth knowing my biggest achievement was raising two amazing kids.”
“Well, one at least,” I joke with him, ignoring the way my chest is contracting when I think of the day he won’t be here for me. Knowing it’s going to kill me. “Thank you for showing me the way, old man.” I put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze. “Now, since you two are playing hooky today, I’m going to go into work.” I get up and look down at him, stopping. “I want you to meet them.” My voice almost cracking.
“I want to meet this young man of yours and Harmony.” He smiles at me, my chest filling with pride when I think of bringing them here.