Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
His jaw tightened. “No idea. But that can’t be good.”
“No shit.”
His phone suddenly bleeped in his hand, and he glanced down and scowled.
“What?”
He passed me the phone to show a text from Stella.
“Hey, sorry, I fell asleep on the couch. It’s late. See u tomorrow?”
I swore before I texted a quick reply.
“Our bed is going to miss you. Sleep well, beautiful.”
I tossed the phone back to Austin, and the two of us nodded slowly.
“We should head back — try and figure this shit out. Maybe we can call a few people and see if they know anything.”
I nodded, my thoughts swirling as I glared at the ground.
“We’ll see her tomorrow, Dallas,” my brother said lowly, his hand on my shoulder.
“I know,” I growled. “I just don’t like it.”
He smiled thinly. “C’mon, let’s head back.”
12
Stella
As elegant as Katrina had made things, and as gorgeous as the ceremony spot next the Rayburn falls was decorated, this was still a country mountain wedding. And her fiancé was still a rough mountain man.
…Which is to say, even if there was plenty of champagne and good wine, there was also plenty of whiskey.
Perfect.
My nerves had been on edge the whole night before after the call from my OB’s office. I’d hid it as best I could when I’d taken on my maid of honor duties by kicking Braun out for the night to go stay at Vlad and Chloe’s so Katrina and I could have girl time. I’d even sort of put it out of my mind as we stayed up late talking about old times, plans of the future, doing her nails, and all that stuff.
But now the day of? It was all coming back. And I was a wreck.
Part of me wanted to run — run, not walk — down the mountain to the nearest drug store and buy a pregnancy test. But I knew that was ridiculous. Even if — and if was the huge word there — something had, well, taken, day two was hardly when a pee test was going to show anything.
Before my first run-in with Austin and Dallas, I hadn’t had sex in, well, a while. Actually I’d joked with Katrina over the phone that closest thing to getting laid I was getting was a nurse’s assistant implanting my own eggs inseminated with a stranger’s sperm into my uterus.
Yeah, real steamy.
But then, I’d run into them, I’d lost my freaking mind, and I’d lost my damn heart along the way. I’d also had both of their cum inside of me, multiple times. So, if there was a pregnancy test that could magically show after a day? Well, there’d only be two men I’d need to talk to.
…Two men who I was going to have to face any minute now when they arrived.
I grabbed a glass of the whiskey Braun had set out off the bar and brought it to my lips. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply, feeling my blood pound in my ears before slowly, I took it away from my face.
No.
And suddenly, the word roared through my head even louder, and I set the glass back on the table and shoved it away.
Hell no. I knew my chances were low — really low, even with how fertile I was from the treatments. But still, if I was? I almost wanted to slap myself. Yeah, no fucking way was I drinking a drop until I could pee on a stick and find out for sure.
And then, maybe, I’d have to have some pretty real conversations with Austin and Dallas.
…And me possibly being pregnant wasn’t the only thing I was scared to talk to them about.
They’d lied to me. Or at the least, they’d omitted some serious shit from me. The whole thing with their father — I shivered as I turned away, biting my lip and losing myself in my thoughts. I didn’t think they were killers, even if the story about them going on the run for being accused of it was true. They’d spoken of their father with such love and admiration that they’d have to be total psychopaths to also have killed him. But even so, they were on the run from the law. They were fugitives wanted for murder, and they hadn’t mentioned it.
I paced the clearing by the falls, trying to escape the cloud over my head by mingling with the guests. Katrina’s parents were there, and however weird and zany in that super-rich way they were, it was still nice to see some familiar faces. Eventually though, everyone headed back down the path to the house, where we were all going to meet first before taking our seats for the ceremony back up here.
And then I was alone. Alone with the cloud following me. The cloud of doubt, and worry, and fear The cloud that kept whispering in my ear that even if I’d fallen hard for the two mountain brothers, I really didn’t know them very well. And that scared me.