Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 72822 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72822 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
He stared at me for a long time, his gaze so damn intense that it almost made me squirm.
“Dying is the coward’s way out.”
I laughed at that. “Maybe.”
He opened his mouth to argue. “Why wouldn’t you do the treatment?”
I dropped the keys next to his hand and stared up into his eyes.
“Why would I?” I asked, pausing to study his eyes as I said what I had to say next. “Whatever put those shadows in your eyes lets me know that you probably have a good idea what it feels like to have nothing left.”
His hand came up to my cheek, and only his index finger ran along the line of my cheekbone. “Used to think I had nothing,” he answered. “Found out about a year and a half ago that I did.”
I smiled sadly. “I’m glad that you do.”
He pushed the keys away from his hand and took a step back.
“Come on,” he urged, reaching forward and almost brushing my face with his shirt.
Then he yanked the jump drive out of the computer.
I blinked.
“You just took the jump drive out of the computer without ejecting it first,” I told him. “That’s a good way to corrupt the data you have there.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes I like to live dangerously.”
I rolled my eyes.
“I guess if that’s what you think dangerous is, then maybe we shouldn’t be going any further into this investigation without someone who knows what they’re doing.”
His lips twitched.
“Honey, I was in the Air Force. You’re not going to find anyone who knows what they’re doing more than I do.”
I laughed. “If you say so.”
He took a hold of my arm and pulled me along in his wake.
“Where are we going now?”
He let go of my arm long enough to twist the lock on the back side of my door, and then pushed me out into the warm autumn air.
“We’re going to get a few answers.”
Then he was pulling me along with him.
“Where is that?”
He grunted something, and I had to tug on his hand to get him to repeat himself. “What?”
“Kilgore.”
Chapter 7
I don’t always pass slow drivers, but when I do I check to see if they look as stupid as they drive.
-Dante’s secret thoughts
Dante
If what she said was true, then this woman wasn’t anything to be worried about, but I was skeptical.
I’d witnessed that scene out front.
Drake had his hands on her, and she hadn’t protested the move.
I wanted to trust her. Really, I did.
But I didn’t trust anyone. Not anymore.
Not after I trusted the one person that I always thought I could trust, and she ripped my life to shreds by uttering one tiny little lie.
And learning that she had cancer? I wasn’t so sure what to think.
Who wouldn’t try to fight if there was a chance? This woman was young. Just barely thirty. I’d looked at her driver’s license while she’d been in the gas station using the restroom at the last rest stop.
She still had a long life full of events to look forward to—like marriage and kids. Those would be the best years of her life, and she was just going to give it up?
That seemed off to me.
However, without actually seeing her doctor, I could only go by what she was telling me, and that wasn’t much.
However, Rafe, my contact with whatever secret organization he belonged to, was less than ten minutes away and would hopefully be able to fix that. Soon.
This woman, Cobie Cavanagh, was an enigma.
There was something about her that was making me insanely curious, and I didn’t fuckin’ like that.
I liked being distant from other people. I liked knowing that I wasn’t affected by getting too close to them.
So what if she didn’t want to do her cancer treatments. So what if she had cancer.
I shouldn’t fuckin’ care.
But I did.
It was driving me goddamn insane, thinking that she was going to purposefully not treat this disease that would eventually kill her.
The idea of her not being here on this earth next year was fucking hurting.
It shouldn’t hurt.
In fact, if I was living my life right, nothing should hurt anymore.
Mary was fucking ruining me.
And that was that.
She was making me care when the last thing on this planet I wanted to do was have feelings for another human being. Some person who could up and die on me, leaving me with yet another open and bleeding wound that I had no hope of repairing.
“Do you know where we’re going?”
I nodded, not bothering to look over at this Cobie chick with her soulful brown eyes and the cutest goddamn freckles I’d ever seen.
Her hair was brown and barely brushing her chin.
I wanted to touch it, which was the last thing on this earth that I needed to do.
What I needed to do was collect myself, build my wall higher, and continue not to feel.