Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“You mean truthfully? Yeah, hate to inform you, but you’re no longer in the land of make-believe. Welcome to the real world.” He glances away, into the distance. It wouldn’t surprise me if he decided to make a run for it. “Well? What’s it going to be––staying or going?”
A stare-off ensues. He mulls it over. I can’t even believe he’s mulling it over. Does he not realize he’s doing time if this fails? “Staying.”
“Then I expect you at work tomorrow.”
Without waiting for a reply, I walk away.
It’s late when I get done with night check and enter the house. Voices drift out of the family room. Mona’s and Darby’s. I head there to give Mona the updates on the medications we need to re-order and updates on the two horses that have been healing from minor injuries.
I walk in to find them on the big, beat-up leather couch sitting side by side, Darby’s arm around her shoulders. Mona’s attention is hard to hold and the fact that she’s still seeing Darby could be a good thing. He seems decent enough and clearly makes her happy.
“Hiiii, Blue,” she cheerfully greets me. “Grab a slice of the brambleberry pie I made and come watch this movie with us.”
“I may have finally gotten through to Aidan. Fingers crossed he starts to do some actual work tomorrow.”
“Oh, good, maybe he’s feeling better.”
She’s still stuck on this idea that he’s depressed. I’m not so easily convinced, but whatever.
“Pepper didn’t finish her hay cubes tonight.”
Mona’s smile drops. She looks thoughtful for a moment. “Let’s keep an eye on her.”
“I will. She’s not always hungry late so it’s probably nothing. The spider bite on Venus’s neck is almost completely healed, but we’re going to need more of that dressing we’ve been putting on it.”
Pepper is as old as the hills, but she’s been healthy since the day we found her at a kill auction. And Venus is our very first rescue and arguably my favorite after Billy. She’s a paint mare that taught thousands of kids how to ride and was thrown away like garbage when she got too old to work. Thinking about it makes me want to karate chop a stack of bricks.
I fall into the big, stuffed, distressed-brown leather armchair and throw a curious glance at the flat screen TV above the river rock fireplace. Some strange sounds are coming from there. “What movie is this?”
“9 1/2 Weeks,” says the woman more than twice my age and a mother figure to me.
I jump right out of the armchair. The last thing I want to do is watch a lorno, otherwise known as light porn, with Mona and her kinky lover. Not my idea of a good time.
“I’ll pass. See you tomorrow.”
“Night, Smokey.”
“Night, Bandit.”
Upstairs, I run a bath with lavender Epsom salts. My muscles ache from stacking hay bales and sometimes a girl just has to soak. On autopilot, I drop trou and panties, ditch the sports bra, and go in search of my paperback as the tub fills up.
I love paperbacks. I love the smell. I love the feel of them between my fingers. You drop that in the tub and there’s no risk of permanent injury. Try that with an e-reader and see what happens to you. This is why some things will never go out of style.
Searching the box I packed with books when I moved out of the guesthouse turns up nothing. I’m shocked to discover that my well-worn copy of Simply Sinful by Kate Pearce with the cover ripped off is not amongst the other books. My heart starts to pitter-patter a little harder when I check the only other box and it’s not in there either.
Holy fornication.
I like my literature dark and sexy and I won’t apologize for it. There can never be enough rough sex and dark undertones in what I like to read. So the fact that my book is missing sends a bolt of cold sweat up my back. If it’s not in the box with the rest of my books, I can only assume it’s in one other place: the guesthouse. The guesthouse which is occupied territory at the present moment.
A million scenarios run through my mind and none of them make me look good. The next three months will be a living hell if I have to endure having Shane Hughes cast judgmental stares in my direction. Something must be done to correct this monumental error ASAP.
Grabbing the binoculars which have increasingly come in handy, I check to see if the lights are on in the guesthouse and they are. I throw on an old t-shirt I sleep in and shorts I made out of old sweatpants I’d worn into smithereens.
Minutes later, I’m standing in front of the door of the house I once called my home, palms sweating, while I devise a plan. I knock lightly and surprisingly hear, “One minute,” almost instantly.