Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Shaking her head, Delaney replied, “I wouldn’t have done it without you, either.”
“Yeah, well ...” To her, it didn’t change the fact that it took a lot of courage. Something no amount of money could buy. That shit came from the heart and soul. “Get going—you’ve still got to make taco dip and cheesecake for tomorrow.”
Delaney snickered. “All those calories.”
“The best kind of calories, though.”
And she refused to feel any guilt about the damn good food she would eat tomorrow at her housewarming. What could be better than great food and friends, anyway?
“Truth.” Delaney glanced her way again, but this time, her smile felt true. “You’re right. About my cousin, I mean. Everything is ... well, it’s going to be great.”
“That’s the only way you need to look at things.”
No one needed to manifest trouble when it hadn’t even darkened their doorstep, yet. Negative thoughts could do just that before someone even realized it.
Delaney yanked the Jeep into reverse, but the vehicle didn’t begin to move as she must have kept her foot on the brake. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” Gracen agreed.
Her friend smiled in the direction of the side of the house, and her gaze followed the path of the driveway that continued winding around to the rear. “Does it feel like home, yet?”
Gracen didn’t even have to think about it.
Even empty ...
“From the moment I walked through the door.”
*
Gracen trekked the long driveway with a black garbage bag in each hand. It was hard to believe how much garbage could come from just unpacking and wiping things down. The short walk for garbage trips might be the one thing she would miss from living right in town. Rural living wouldn’t be quite the same in that aspect.
Situated on ten acres of property and hugged for as far as the eye could see by rolling wheat fields, Gracen’s three-bedroom farmhouse sat at the bottom of a hill off the main road. Driving by, if someone didn’t pay attention, they might miss the private access leading down to the house. The tall gray barn was typically the first thing a person saw if they did look beyond the crest of the gully as it reached tall toward the sky. The house and detached garage sat off to the corner of the property, a good fifty meters from the barn, behind a line of white birch trees that Gracen had remembered being a lot smaller when she was a girl.
In fact, her girlhood bedroom had looked through the tips of the birches, and in the spring of the year, she watched the swallows come back to their nests tucked into the elbows of the thicker limbs. The chirps of baby birds had awakened her from dreams most mornings. It shouldn’t be a surprise that most of her childhood had been spent in a princess-like fantasy.
At the very end of the driveway, Gracen dropped the black bags into the wooden garbage bin with her house’s number painted in a bright white.
4255.
The SOLD sign still stood proudly on the other side of the drive facing the road overtop the standard realty posting. They wouldn’t be able to take it down for another week or so—according to the realtor, anyhow.
Gracen didn’t really understand why it had to remain up after she already had the keys, but those were the rules. The sign wasn’t a bother. It gave her butterflies every time it came into view because it was one more reminder that this place was hers.
All ten acres.
Every single inch.
Hers.
Somehow, she’d found her way back home.
Gracen had made it halfway back to the house when a truck turned off the road and pulled into her driveway. She didn’t immediately recognize the dark blue Ford F150, and despite the daylight, she had to squint to make out who sat behind the wheel.
It didn’t become clear until the truck was a lot closer.
Barely ten feet away, in fact.
Perhaps she’d recognized him faster, but the shock kept Gracen from accepting the realty in front of her. Not because it made her unhappy.
Quite the opposite.
Her heart was ready to explode.
There was no mistaking that strong jaw or those stormy blue eyes piercing into her from behind the windshield. One of his hands lifted from the steering wheel to wave her way making Gracen’s smile bloom instantly. His widened as well.
Malachi, who had already put the truck into park, pushed open the driver’s door after unbuckling his seat belt. Gracen made her way around to his side of the truck before he’d even gotten out, but his arms were opened wide as soon as he did. She practically jumped into his embrace, their chests slamming together from the force of her propelling forward.
“Surprise,” was all he whispered as he hugged her tight and picked her up from the ground.
His one warm wrapped her back around her baggy hoodie while his other palmed her ass overtop of her cut off jean shorts.