Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Her life could have turned out so differently if she’d never gotten involved with Jonathan Bridger.
“Oh, sweetheart. I’m not.”
I set my elbow in the open window and lean my head into the phone. “Why the hell not? He was an asshole to you and didn’t deserve you.”
“Because he gave me you. I’d do it all over again.”
I’m quiet because…fuck. My mom did everything for me. Everything. Now she’s sick and I’m far away and can’t help.
I switch topics. “Your sink clogging again?”
“No, it’s fine.”
She pauses, and just when I’m about ready to break the silence—
“Sweetheart, sometimes bad things happen,” she says, not taking the hint. “It’s hard. Hell, even. But good things result from it. You can’t often see it until later, when you look back. You are the best thing in my world, and as much as I hate to admit it, you were a gift from Jonathan Bridger. I’ll always be grateful to him for giving me the person I love most. You gave my life purpose, Austin. You inspired me to fulfill my dreams.”
Mom’s words ring true. She always put me first, and I never went to bed not knowing I was cherished by the only parent who mattered.
I think of Carly, of what she went through, and wonder if she sees any good things that came from her hellish experience. How can she?
We ride into town and Chance pulls into a parking spot around the central square. It’s a small park with what looks like a war memorial. The town looks more like Mayberry than Bayfield, where nothing bad ever happens.
“I have to go,” I say. “Love you.”
“Love you, too, sweetheart.”
I end the call.
“Your mom?” Miles disconnects his seatbelt.
While we worked side by side the past two days, we didn’t talk all that much.
Instead, Carly invaded my thoughts. The way she looked outside the bar as she rocked her hips onto my fingers. The feel of her hand clenching my wrist. How her eyes closed halfway as she was about to come. How I wanted to get her there, and did just that at the spring. I pushed her over and she was fucking gorgeous.
I let go of my dick-hardening thoughts of Carly and focus back on Miles’s question. “Yeah. She’s got MS and I worry, being so far away.”
“She okay?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah, it’s in the early stages, but she can’t fly any longer.”
“She a pilot, too?” Chance takes off his sunglasses and tosses them on the dash.
“She started the seaplane company. Had to support herself—and me—after dear old Dad dumped her. She took all the flights when I was a kid. I got my pilot’s license the second I was old enough and I’ve been working beside her ever since. I took over all the routes when she was grounded last year.”
And the bills. And all the other shit.
“Now you’re not there,” Chance says.
“Nothing gets by you, does it? Now I’m not there. But she’s hanging in there. So’s the business with a guy who’s filling in for me on the routes.” For now, anyway.
“Sounds like your mom’s a badass,” Miles runs a hand over his scruffy jaw. “And our father’s a dick.”
“No shit.”
Chance grabs his Stetson from the center console, opens his door but doesn’t climb out until he says, “Our father was a dick.”
I meet Miles’s gaze after that truth bomb. Chance hasn’t shared his feelings about anything other than Carly Vance. I assumed he’s just a cranky fucker, but it seems there’s more to it than two half brothers taking his hard-earned money.
I hop out and catch up to Chance on the sidewalk. “You lived with the guy. I thought you two were—”
Chance tips his head my way. “Close? Best buds?”
Miles is right on our heels.
“You two don’t know shit,” Chance snaps.
“Fine,” Miles cuts in. “Then tell fucking tell us. You lost your dad. Regardless of what we think of him, I’m sure it’s hard.”
Chance laughs, but it’s clear he’s not amused.
“Is it about the money then?” I ask.
Chance stops on the sidewalk and crosses his arms. “You think I care that you two take a cut? What the fuck am I going to do with three billion dollars?”
Donate it to charity? Pay off small business debts and buy a fleet of seaplanes? Pay for multiple sclerosis drugs and treatment programs?
“If it’s not that,” Miles says, “then what the hell crawled up your butt and died? I mean, are you cranky all the fucking time?”
Chance starts walking again and his long gait eats up the distance to the bar, but he slows. “Shit.”
Miles and I look around. “What?”
“One of the many things that crawled up my butt and died, as you put it?” Chance rakes a hand down his face. “Him. Rick Vance.”
I follow Chance’s glare and glimpse an older man in pressed jeans and a crisp white snap shirt. He looks like he came out of a commercial for ironing starch. He’s walking our way. I can tell the second he sees us, or at least Chance, because his entire demeanor shifts. To anger. Rage, even. His face turns ruddy, and if I were closer, I’d probably see a vein bulging in his neck. His hands are clenched into fists.