Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Conleigh took every single word in that he said to her and then smiled.
Linc’s body went taut and that was when I realized that Conleigh’s appreciation of him was not only reciprocated but possibly even more disadvantageous on his end.
Shit.
Conleigh, my beautiful girl, was only sixteen.
However, she’d had to grow up fast. Since she was a young girl, she’d had to do things that a normal child wouldn’t have to do. Such as stay on her own when she was really much too young to be allowed on her own while I worked. She’d been cooking for herself since she was tall enough to work a microwave, and not a day went by that she didn’t try to pay for something that a child shouldn’t be paying for.
She had a good head on her shoulders, so I wasn’t worried in the least that they’d do something stupid.
But, as I watched Linc gesture for us to follow him away from the crowd of kids who still hadn’t let up, I realized that neither one of them were stupid.
That didn’t mean that the attraction that I could practically feel moving between them might not outweigh their common sense.
I’d have to talk to Steel, as well as Conleigh.
From what Steel had told me, Linc was a freshman at LSU and on the fast track to the NFL once he was eligible for the draft, which made him eighteen or nineteen. That was a two-to-three-year age difference between the two of them.
But, at least I’d started talking to Conleigh early about things like STDs, birth control, pregnancy, and money problems. I didn’t spare her the gritty details at all.
I was very blunt and upfront with my girl.
“Mommy?”
As they walked away, my son stopped me with a tug on my arm as I wondered if she’d use the common sense that God gave her and would hopefully not act like I did when I was her age.
“Yeah, baby?” I asked.
“Is that a wolf?”
I looked over at a dog that did, indeed, look like a wolf.
“Uhhh,” I hesitated.
“Part wolf.”
I looked over to see the older version of the boy who’d just walked off with my daughter and grinned.
“It’s cute,” I said. “But I thought they were illegal.”
Jessie shrugged, his eyes going to where his son was now standing on the back deck reaching into a cooler. He came back up with a Dr. Pepper and handed it to Conleigh. “Sooo…”
I burst out laughing. “Yeah, so…”
He snorted, then held his hand out to me.
I took it as he introduced himself.
“I know who you are,” I said. “I was in the police cruiser with Steel a few days ago when you pulled up next to us at a stop light. It’s nice to officially meet you.”
I’d also seen him from afar at the hospital when, on the rare occasion, he came to visit his wife, Ellen.
Speaking of Ellen, she came sauntering up, a half glass of wine clutched in her hand and a mutilated sandwich in the other.
“Uhh,” I said. “Were you hungry?”
Ellen snorted. “My daughter has decided that anything other than the crust is the devil on sandwiches. Last week, she’d only eat the filling, sans bread. I guess we’re making progress.”
I grinned.
“Cody,” I placed my hand on Cody’s head, who was very interested in the wolf-dog at the moment. “Went through this phase where he’d eat only meat. I couldn’t get him to touch a vegetable or a carb to save my life for about six months.”
Ellen chuckled as she handed Cody the sandwich. “Tell him to sit, and then give it to him.”
Cody took the sandwich without flinching, his interest in the pup too great.
He loved dogs. The two that we’d seen on our way to the clubhouse had been fussed over, quite a bit, as we’d driven.
“Sit,” Cody ordered the pup.
The ‘dog’ sat, and Cody handed him the food between his fingers.
My belly clenched when I saw the dog lean forward quickly, horror filling my veins, but all the dog did was gently take the food, and then swallow it whole.
“Shit,” I muttered. “That just scared the crap out of me.”
“Oh, don’t worry about my baby. He would never hurt anybody who wasn’t deserving of it. I can’t say that about any other dog, though.”
I agreed.
Working in the ER was enlightening, to say the least.
There was at least one dog bite a week, and sometimes they were really bad. It’d left a bad taste in my mouth, so I was wary of nearly every dog, small or big, now.
“Did you hear about the one last week?”
I nodded.
While I’d been gone, a young girl that was all of eighteen months old had been mauled by the family poodle. The poodle had mauled her before the parents could so much as react. She’d been flown to a neighboring hospital where she’d immediately undergone emergency surgery, but her face would never be the same.