Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
Realizing she asked me a question, I answer, “No, this ain’t a kidnapping.”
She puts her seatbelt on. That’s got to count as consent, right? Aww, hell. She’s got my thinking all scrambled. She gestures around the cab of the truck with her hands. “Then what are you calling this?”
“Borrowing,” I finally decide. “I’m borrowing you from real life for a little bit.”
She blinks at me, pretty little mouth agape. I kind of like that I made her speechless for a few seconds. But eventually, she speaks again, “I don’t think you can borrow a person like a library book.”
“I just did,” I answer as I turn onto one of the dirt backroads of Courage. I half-expect to see blue lights flashing in my rearview but nobody is coming for her. Good thing too. They’d have to pry her from me. She’s mine now. She belongs to me.
“Listen, you’re tired. It’s probably been a long day. Just drop me off at my family’s place and we’ll call it even. Anybody who asks, we’ll say you gave me another ride home.”
“You scared of me?” I bark the question out from a chest that’s too tight. I’ve earned my reputation by making sure people were scared of me. Never bothered me because I was protecting him. My autistic brother. If people hated me, then they weren’t taking aim at him. It was a small price to pay to keep him safe.
Still, the thought she might be scared of me has my guts twisting together. She never has anything to fear from me. I won’t harm a hair on her head, and I’ll die before I let anyone else hurt her.
Her gaze softens and she looks at me like she sees me. The real me. The man beneath the surface of a teenage boy that had to grow up angry. Her voice is a tiny whisper, “I could never be scared of you.”
The words settle in my chest, filling me with feral pride. She’s my treasure and maybe she doesn’t know that quite yet. But she understands it. On some level, she knows and for now, that’s enough.
She lets out a soft sigh. “My brothers need me. I’m supposed to be home with them tonight. Maybe we’ll rain check, huh?”
“Journey said she’d stay the night,” I answer. Alright, so I planned this. Not the picking her up and throwing her into my truck bit. I hadn’t planned to borrow her. But I did make sure the boys would be with Journey tonight. Even stopped by to take care of her animals. They’re all looking a little skinny, not malnourished. But some of them need will extra feed in the coming days.
“Alright then, what’s your plan? You obviously thought ahead to take care of the boys.”
Actually, I didn’t get that far with my plan. Never exactly been known for my strategic thinking. There’s a reason they call me Striker. I hit first, ask questions later. Got me into more scrapes than I can count but I made it out. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
She laughs then. It’s a small sound, not like the hysterical one she made when I first scooped her up and sat her cute ass in my truck. “You don’t have one. I have to be honest. You kind of suck at the whole kidnapping thing.”
Fuck, I love the sound of her teasing me. I could get used to that. “Cut me some slack. It’s my first time.”
“Nothing like learning on the job.” In the fading light, I can see the white of her smile and it eases something in my chest. She’s happy to be here with me. “Tell me something about yourself.”
Aww, shit. Nothing worth knowing about me. I own the Cardinal Ranch, inherited it after my daddy died. Dying was the only good thing the sorry son of a bitch ever did for me and my brother. “Nothing to tell.”
“How am I supposed to develop Stockholm syndrome without a personal connection to you?”
“You’re one of them book smart people.” Course, she is. I should have realized that. She went away to college. I barely graduated high school. I just got pushed through because everyone was tired of dealing with my grumpy ass. But even now, I don’t do much of the reading thing. Don’t reckon written words ever made a whole lot of sense to me. I can manage a few of them, enough to decode the basics. Not more than that.
“Top of my class.” There’s a note of pride in her voice that’s unmistakable. She should be proud of all her accomplishments.
“Bottom of my class.” There’s no pride in my voice.
“There are all kinds of smart. I might be book smart, but I’d bet your street smart. Probably got a wicked right hook. Least from what I hear.”