Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
It’d be nice if he had processed timber too. I had to go to the lumberyard again next weekend when it was time to build a smaller fence around the garden. Wildlife was one thing. Protecting the garden from Grace and the little one on the way was a whole other.
This house had turned out great for us. There was always something new to fix, and I felt better being able to build something with my own hands. Whether it’d been Pipsqueak’s dream kitchen, replacing the molding in the living room, installing insulation in the garage, building a deck here on the patio, or now, fixing her garden, I was there. I’d racked up an impressive collection of tools and workbenches that I kept in the garage.
I suspected Elise had helped Grace pick out a tool belt for me for Christmas…for other reasons than practicality, though.
I smirked to myself and reached for the drill—
“Avery, honey?” Elise poked her head out the terrace door. “I need you two seconds—figuratively speaking.”
“All right.” I stood up and brushed my hands off down my thighs.
I shed my boots and hoodie at the door, because Elise didn’t want sawdust everywhere. She may have told me that once or twice.
Then I followed her to the kitchen, or more precisely, the kitchen window.
“Who are we spying on?” I joked.
Our neighbors were, much like us, preparing for summer. Shutters were being cleaned, cars washed, flower bed shrubs tossed out, and picket fence repainted. Ours had a good decade to go, I hoped. I’d repainted it last spring.
“The blue Ford behind Mr. Cohen’s car.”
“I was kidding, baby.”
“I wasn’t. Look.” She tugged at my arm and pointed toward the car. “It’s the third time this week I’ve seen that car, and I swear the man looks like you.”
My stomach tightened instinctively, and I couldn’t avoid the car even if I wanted to. My gaze became fixed on it.
God only knows…
It was nearly impossible to see because Cohen’s car blocked the Ford’s driver’s side. But I did see someone. Through the back window of Cohen’s vehicle, I saw someone sitting behind the wheel.
It couldn’t be him.
“Finn doesn’t know where we live,” I had to say.
“It’s a simple Google search, Ave,” she murmured.
I swallowed and looked again.
God only knows…
When I shifted a bit to the left, I got a fraction of a second with a better view before the man in the Ford turned his head, and what my brain refused to admit, my body already believed wholeheartedly. My heart started hammering in my chest, my hands broke out in a cold sweat, and my throat closed up.
I shut my eyes and watched that little glimpse on repeat. A reflection of myself, except it wasn’t me.
Pipsqueak hugged my arm. “I wouldn’t have called you in here for anything less than a strong suspicion.”
I knew that.
Go to him.
I didn’t know if my wife told me, or if I heard her voice in my head, but I nodded once before my body took charge. I didn’t recall making the decision to leave the kitchen, to walk out the front door, or to close the gate behind me, but suddenly I was on the sidewalk in front of my house. The air was crisp, the sun warm. Thoughts jumbled. Memories began playing on a reel in my head, Finn’s shy grins mingling with his cries of despair. If it was, in fact, him in that car, he would be a stranger to me. He’d be nothing like the man I’d created in my mind.
As soon as I’d passed the parked cars along the curb and made it out onto the street, there was nothing obstructing my view, and a whirlwind of emotions surged forward. It’s him. He spotted me too, and he looked fucking terrified, this spitting image of myself. I didn’t even register the steps I took toward him; I only noticed that I got closer and closer—until I was right next to his car.
My breathing was weirdly calm and even, a stark contrast to the rest of me.
My God, it was Finn. He glanced up at me with so much trepidation as he opened the door, and he could not look more reluctant to step out of the car. But he did it. He was here. He’d been here…according to Pipsqueak, more than once.
He looked a bit more ragged than me. I couldn’t look away from him, and I was already cataloguing his features. The scruff on his jaw, the messiness of his hair, jeans and a wrinkled button-down, the same fucking eyes I saw every morning in the mirror when I shaved.
A voice at the back of my head screamed at me. I didn’t hear the words for shit, but before I knew it, I pulled him in for a tight hug, and something broke within me. My eyes flooded with tears, my breathing stuttered, and my heart stopped for a moment.