Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
He fit the bill on every level.
That sort of thing could be scary.
She was allowed time—and to be fair, she hadn’t exactly had a lot of time with Lucas, yet—to make sure that it wasn’t just attraction and the surface feelings making her see him that way. Hadn’t he been the one to say she should put the bar higher for him?
Okay, so it was.
She wanted to see what he would do with it.
“He’s kind of great,” Delaney settled on saying.
The most she would give.
For now, at least.
“Great enough to be your date at my wedding in May?”
“Now you’re asking the hard questions,” Delaney returned.
Gracen smirked as she passed Delaney by to open the bedroom door once more to expose the hallway outside. Mister Kitty had made his way upstairs to lay directly in front of the closed door, and Delaney swore his expression looked offended at the fact it had been shut on him.
“Really? That’s tough for you?” Gracen asked. “I thought the hard questions would start somewhere around me asking if you’d slept with him yet.”
Nope, that was the easiest answer.
“Working on it,” Delaney said on her way out of the bedroom. “Now, let’s go visit all my purses and things that I haven’t seen in forever.”
Gracen shook her head, following behind Delaney. “I’m gonna start charging you rent … or storage fees.”
She would not.
Mister Kitty didn’t move out of the way for them, either.
Chapter 22
“Is that an ‘82?” Malachi asked.
Lucas chuckled from his seat at the table. The man had spied the truck from the window over the sink five minutes ago and hadn’t looked back. “Close. Three.”
Malachi whistled. “Damn. It’s in nice shape, man.”
“Yeah, Mitchel kept it up. I didn’t have the same sentimental feelings about it that he did, but I couldn’t sell it after everything was said and done.”
“Mitchel?”
“My grandfather,” Lucas clarified, smiling apologetically when Malachi glanced his way. “The camp in the Ridge was his—the old truck came with it when it switched over to me. Of course, it’s got to a point when something breaks on it, they’ve gotta go four acres deep into a junkyard to find a part on another one to fix it.”
“I bet,” Malachi replied absentmindedly, his focus back on the Chevy that could be considered an antique at this point. “Why’d he keep it for so long?”
“Said he got laid in the truck once upon a time, and never got over that one. Never specified whether it was the same truck or not, fair warning.”
Malachi chuckled. “Good to know.”
The last fifteen years of Mitchel’s marriage with his wife before she passed had been fraught with her sickness—cancer truly was a bitch—but Lucas barely even remembered his grandmother now. In fact, he had clearer memories of when his grandfather bought the old truck. His grandmother was dead before his early childhood memories really started. Not known for his romantic nature, or even friendliness on a good day, it really said something that there had been a woman in Lucas’ grandfather’s past that lived rent-free in the back of Mitchel’s mind.
“Anyway, he loved the damn thing because of it. Kept up on the body work and only drove it when he came to the camp.”
Malachi grinned wickedly. “Shit, eh? Really?”
Lucas shrugged. “That’s what he told me.”
And anybody else who asked, too.
Some stories couldn’t be told enough, apparently.
“So, hey, if you ever wanna sell it,” the man hedged.
Lucas laughed. “Seriously?”
Malachi shrugged, and turned away from the sink and window with the half emptied glass of water sloshing from the fast spin. “Yeah, no joke. Gracen would only want to kill me for a little while—she’ll like taking it out in the fields in the summer, though. It’ll work itself out.”
The guy had it all planned out, clearly.
Lucas glanced down at the creamy coffee in the mug between his cupped hands on the barn-style table. “I should get rid of the damn thing and store something newer at the camp with a better set of tires. I don’t usually come upriver in the winter.”
“Put a number on it,” Malachi returned, coming to sit at the head of the table with a lazy posture that spoke of his comfort in the spot. “Let’s see if it meets the one I’ve got in my head.”
“Right now?”
“No time like the present,” the man said, smirking back.
Shit, all right.
He wasn’t playing around.
Lucas liked that. “Twenty, and you take it as is.”
Malachi tipped his head to the side like he was considering the offer. Even his left eye squinted a bit as if he might be doing math inside his head and needed the extra focus. His concentration gave Lucas the time to survey the interlocking wood panels that made up the walls, and the many framed photos, some seemingly spanning years, decorating the space.
Cozy with history.