Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
After a while, Charlie came from the direction of the farmhouse to join me. We stood next to each other watching Hudson whistle Mama this way and that.
“Does this ever make you miss Ireland?” I asked.
He laughed. “The opposite. Seeing Hudson this happy is all I need. I don’t care where I am as long as that man is by my side. Why would I want to be anywhere else?”
His copper hair was even redder in the early afternoon sun as a light breeze blew long strands across his face.
“That’s awfully sappy, even for you,” I said weakly, shoving away more stupid memories of Worth’s handsome face.
“This is what it’s all about. Love. Family. Being at breakfast in there with your family is a bit like plugging in the phone charger. I look at your grandfathers and see what I want—a life spent with the man I love. And now that I’m with your brother, I have it. All I have to do is hold on to it and not fuck it up.”
I was sick and fucking tired of people in love. It was like everyone in here had taken tokes off the love pipe, and I wanted no part of it.
“That’s nice,” I said through tight teeth. “I’m going to ride into town. I need to…” I scrambled to think of something. “Loan Sassy my flute.”
I walked off and left the two lovebirds to their moony-eyed bullshit. Instead of going into the kitchen where there would undoubtably be more moony-eyed bullshit, I hopped in one of the ranch trucks and took a drive.
When I ended up at the little cabin Annie have left me at the edge of Campside Cove, I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was the ramshackle place I’d called home every summer since the age of sixteen, and it was furnished with various Wilde family castoffs over the years. The result of the hodgepodge furnishings was a familiar comfort I sank into as soon as the door was closed behind me.
It was chilly in the cabin, but I knew there was a thick quilt calling my name in the small bedroom. I grabbed it and brought it back out onto the porch where I plunked myself down on the single wooden rocking chair and gazed out at the water with the old quilt wrapped around me.
I pictured the rainbow colors of sails dotting the lake ahead and remembered what the cove looked like in the height of summer, full of kids getting their first taste of the water, of the wind and sails.
“They always end up in irons,” Annie would mutter before inevitably calling out, “If you ever want to get moving, you’re going to need to find the wind! Find a way to make it happen. Start by wiggling the tiller.”
Memories fell like autumn leaves and settled over me. Her voice was loud in my head as I remembered all the great and not-so-great advice she’d given me over the years.
“Swallow your pride and go ask him,” she’d said when I’d confessed to wanting to take Lew Taggart to the big bonfire my junior year in high school. “Worst that can happen is he says no.”
“No,” I’d said. “Worst that can happen is his brother Chuck beats the shit out of me and leaves me for dead in the school parking lot.”
She’d shrugged. “Have it your way. But I’ll tell you right now, if you can’t find a way to face your fears, you’re only shooting yourself in the foot in the long run.”
“What if he says no and calls me a loser?”
“What if he says yes and kisses your face off?”
I’d blinked at her, imagining Lew kissing my face off. That had seemed pretty damned nice at the time.
She’d laughed. “Seems to me you have a choice. Chicken out and throw yourself a solo pity party or suck it up and take the chance you might actually get what you want.”
An idea sparked in my mind. I knew someone who might be able to put me in touch with the right grant programs. All I had to do was suck it up and take a chance.
Take a chance…
I pulled out my phone and called Worth.
22
Worth
I was doing well… as well as could be expected anyway, considering I thought about Calgary Wilde about fifteen thousand times a day. So when I finally saw his name on my phone, I froze in shock. The voices of the legal team sitting around Spinnaker’s largest conference room table faded away.
It was too good to be true.
I stepped out of the conference room into the hushed corridor, noticing the raised eyebrows of the receptionist through the glass. I shook my head to assure her I didn’t need anything.
“Ah… hello?” I prepared myself to hear the shuffling noises of a butt-dial, but his sweet voice came over the line instead.