Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 167(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Instinct has me pulling Summer against me. Her soft to my hard. Her fear to my protective fury.
I take a deep breath of her. Leaning in to her damp hair, resting my chin on her head, wondering in some way, if this could work.
“It’s a bear,” I say. “Black bear. Not that mean, but not that nice either. Especially because she’s got cubs.”
“Aww, babies?” She pushes up on her knees, trying to get a better look.
“They’re cute, but with them here she’ll be aggressive.” I clear my throat, not sure how to say what I have to say next. “And my pack was out there. I dropped it to catch up with you. I had food and water in there, and my gun. So, I just provided mom and her cubs with a meal.”
Summer hunches into me, and I don’t try to stop her. Somehow, telling her about the past, explaining why I have to put Hailey first, has drained any fight that was left in me. Somehow, it’s made me want her more, not less.
As her body snugs against mine, my traitorous dick responds, and all the reasons I should push her away toddle off like the baby bears into the storm.
Her stomach let’s out a loud growl in the beat of silence and she snorts.
“You need food,” I say, pissed again that I left our supplies outside to be ravaged by a single mom and her triplets.
“I’m okay.”
“What did you have for breakfast?” I clear my throat, looking down to see her cock a half smile, with a sultry lick of her lips and a glance at my lap. “The Black Swan have a continental breakfast buffet for you?”
“I wish. The last thing I had to eat was…” She clicks her teeth together, wiggling her index finger at my lap.
There isn’t much food in the storage cabinet, which doesn’t surprise me. Even with a locked metal cabinet, a starving determined bear could take down the door or come through the window and help themselves easily if they caught a good scent.
I find a couple sealed jars of peanut butter. Crunchy, thank God. Some tea bags in a glass jar and four cans of Spaghetti O’s.
Hailey’s favorite.
Summer watches from where I lifted her onto the small countertop to sit as I work wood into the belly of the stove, adding enough oxygen to get it to catch, then working the rusty can opener on the Spaghetti O’s.
The storm is still doing its thing in rumbles and flashes, but until there’s more light outside and enough time for the bears to finish off whatever they discovered in my pack, we’re stuck.
That’s not the only reason I want to keep her here. We’re alone, together, and my only other worry is Hailey, but if she’s with Ted and Wiley, she won’t miss me at all. They’ll have her knee deep in s’mores and grape soda until she passes out.
Within a few minutes, I’ve got the canned noodle concoction bubbling in a cast-iron skillet, the tea pot whistling as I hand Summer the jar of peanut butter and a spoon from the single drawer under the counter.
“That’s your appetizer,” I say as I point toward the little two-seat wood table. “Not exactly a feast,” I warn as I put the weird meal down on the top and Summer hops down from the counter to take a seat. The cabin has warmed with the fire, and our damp clothes have nearly dried. “Sorry. My culinary skills could do with some refinement.”
She laughs, but shakes her head. “Peanut butter straight from the jar? And, it’s crunchy? I’m in heaven.”
Picking up a spoon, she digs into the peanut butter first. Then, the Spaghetti O’s as I pour the hot water into a mug and dangle a tea bag inside.
Every time there’s a flash of lightning, I check outside. I’ve seen the bears twice more, and I can hear them with my trained ears.
What I’m really worried about is that it will soon be dropping dark for real. With those bears around, it’s not safe to try to get back to the Jeep, which means we’re here until morning.
And, there’s only one bed.
Chapter Eight
Price
Having Summer out here in the woods with me, my ever-present tension seems to lift.
I’m still not sure why a girl like her would look twice at a grumpy, lumbering single dad like me, but we’re here and something about feeding her and the way she makes me want to actually talk is making me think there’s room in mine and Hailey’s life for her after all.
My brain’s been fried since she wrapped her lips around me, calling me Daddy with those big doe eyes. My promises to myself about keeping it just Hailey and me are beginning to waver.
I talked to her about things I haven’t thought of since I was a kid. This sparkly city girl somehow draws out parts of me I thought I’d long put away forever.