Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Seriously, not a day went by that I had any regrets about being the homebody that I was.
“I saw you talking to her.” Kayla laughed. “And you need to get over that aversion to bodily fluids. What are you going to do one day when some man has to spurt his load inside of you to get a baby?”
I literally shivered.
That’d been why I’d yet to go anywhere near a man and his penis. A penis produced bodily fluid, and bodily fluids grossed me out.
Seriously, I might die a virgin.
“I’ll deal with a man and his baby batter when the time comes, and not a moment…” I’d just passed the last car before mine and came to an abrupt stop. “…before.”
“Baby batter?” Rafe asked, coming off of his slouch against my car. “I feel like I missed something.”
He had. But we were not, under any circumstances, revisiting that conversation. So, he would forever be missing something.
“Hi, Rafe!” Kayla waved. “You glad to be home?”
Rafe turned his gaze from me to Kayla. “Yep.”
He returned his eyes to me, and I could almost swear that he’d semi-smiled. It was there and gone so fast that I blinked, and then wasn’t sure if I’d actually seen the phenomenon.
“Uhh,” I said. “Do you want a ride?”
He nodded once. “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
I nodded and gestured to my car. “You’ll have to sit in the middle.”
Rafe shook his head. “You sit in the middle, and I’ll drive.”
I thought about that for about point two seconds, then handed him my keys.
“You can’t drive fast, though,” I said worriedly. “My dad said that if I got another speeding ticket, he’d beat my ass and kick me off of his insurance.”
Rafe’s lips twitched. “Noted.”
Kayla growled. “Can you open the trunk already, Janie? This shit is heavy.”
I walked to the trunk and popped it open, then helped Kayla lay the signs in the back.
“Are you ever going to clean this out?” Kayla said in dismay.
I looked at all the stuff in the trunk and then shrugged. “Maybe.”
In the back was about eighteen pairs of shoes, two that weren’t even mine. They might’ve been my dad’s. I didn’t really know. I didn’t have any male friends, but I thought they weren’t too bad of an idea to have back there, so I left them.
Then there were the multiple sweatshirts, hunting jackets. A pair of waders that I’d used last duck season. A tent. A camp stove. Two propane lights. Groceries that I’d forgotten to get out of the car yesterday, and a hunting rifle.
“What’s with the rifle?” Rafe asked.
I shrugged. “I had it to meet my dad at the range later.”
Rafe grunted.
Kayla patted the signs and then walked around to the front seat.
“Why can’t you get in the back?” Rafe asked.
I opened the door, and my puppies looked back at me with excitement.
“They’re why.”
“Why are they back there?” he asked.
I smiled and reached for Glock’s head, giving him a good scratch behind the ears. Kimber pushed her nose out to sniff Rafe, but hesitated.
Rafe held his hand in a cup shape and extended it to Kimber, and I smiled.
So Rafe was a dog person.
Sweet.
“My babies failed K-9 training,” I said. “There was this cop, his name is Trance. He had them for about a week and told me that these dogs were untrainable. That I’d already broken them.”
Rafe started to laugh. “Any dog is trainable. You just have to find the right trainer.”
“Well,” I hesitated. “Trance brought them back on his way to visit with my dad and Uncle Sam. He said that all they would do for him was lay down. They didn’t even perform for food.” I sighed. “That’s my fault, though. I turned them into lazy hounds.”
I had two German Shepherd puppies that I’d gotten from Trance, and he’d said once they were a year old that I could bring them back if I wanted them trained—which I did.
But, apparently, allowing them to eat like humans meant that they didn’t suffer being treated like actual dogs.
They were mad at me because Trance had kenneled them. They were mad that they no longer got fed actual meals—again, I was informed, that dogs should be eating dog food. Not people food. And, the icing on the cake, they’d both pouted like the spoiled rotten brats that they were the entire two weeks that they’d been gone.
Not only had it sucked for me that they were gone, but it’d also, apparently, sucked for them.
I’d been missing them like crazy these last two weeks, and honestly, I was happy to see that they’d felt the same way.
I’d gotten a call that Trance was dropping them by.
When I’d tried to let them in my place before I’d gone, they’d hauled ass for my car.
Once there, they’d climbed through the open window—the window that my father liked to lecture me about leaving down. Why, oh why, did I have to roll the window up when I was in the compound, under a freakin’ carport?