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)
“Was it a busy week for you?” Gracen asked, breaking the silence first.
Malachi, who had also been watching the passing vehicles and the movement on the river, glanced her way with a frown. “You did get my text, right?”
“The sorry?” His one and only message to her the night after they’d hooked up. Not that it explained anything, nor did she look too far into it. “Yeah, but nothing else.”
He squinted one eye. “Did you need something else?”
Not really.
“Maybe a hello might also have been nice,” Gracen settled on saying. “Anything but an apology when I didn’t really understand what you were apologizing for.”
It didn’t feel like a lie.
“My week sucked,” Malachi muttered the longer Gracen stared across the river instead of at him. “Let’s say I don’t have a lot of friends in the area, so to avoid a problem, I laid low for a few days to get beyond the worst of it.”
That had Gracen curious.
He opened the door.
“Do you mean your family?” she asked. “The Beaus?”
Malachi didn’t hide his surprise at her frank question. He even cocked an eyebrow when he asked her, “My last name was never Beau, but what do you know about them?”
Now or never.
Gracen thought it would only be fair to share the information she knew about him. Everything but how it connected him to her, anyway.
“My friend,” she said, gesturing back at the salon, “Delaney ... she knows your sister. Her cousin is a friend. Delaney used to attend the church, too. Back before she grew up.”
Malachi tipped his chin slightly higher. “And had a choice, I suspect.”
She decided to throw his earlier words back at him, then. “You said it. Not me.”
“Somehow, I still ended up with an invitation for my sister’s engagement dinner tomorrow night being dropped off at my friend’s place,” Malachi said, but nothing about his tone suggested he was happy about it. “A couple of days ago. Somebody just shoved it under the door. I’m not sure what I should do with it, you know?”
The obvious missing piece between them, the fact that her ex was currently set to marry Malachi’s sister, hung in front of Gracen’s face but remained invisible to the man massaging his forehead with fingers that she’d been thinking about for days. In all sorts of ungodly ways. She’d much rather focus on the temptation in front of her than the issue of her unresolved feelings that a man who wasn’t interested in a relationship with her couldn’t fix.
That mess was all hers.
At some point, she would deal with it.
Wouldn’t she have to?
“So, did you have any plans later?” Malachi asked. To her, it felt like a million-dollar question. “Because I’m gonna need to have food to shove into my mouth if you’re asking questions about my family, now.”
Well ...
Did that mean he was willing to talk?
She opted to see it that way.
“I could do something for dinner,” Gracen said, “if you’re buying.”
Malachi nodded with a gesture to her car. “I guess we’re taking that thing, then, huh?”
“Hey, don’t make fun of my Honda. It’s a good car.”
And it could get up to a hundred on the highway like nothing. Not to mention, the fact it wasn’t hard on gas. With fuel tipping a dollar and a quarter a liter, she wouldn’t complain about a vehicle that was the brunt of too many jokes when it came to guys. Besides, she’d heard it all before. None of it was new.
“I’m not riding shotgun,” was all he told her.
“It’s just a Civic. I bet you loved them in every Fast and the Furious—” Gracen didn’t bother to finish her half-hearted rant as she dug for the jingling car keys until she found them at the very bottom of her bag. Typical. There wasn’t a bag in the world that didn’t eat her keys when she needed them the most. Tossing them over to Malachi who caught the ring of trinkets with car and house keys attached, she replied, “I never said you couldn’t drive.”
Chapter 11
Thirty or so kilometers of the Trans-Canada Highway separated The Valley and the nearby, small city known as Grand Falls because of the large power dam built over the waterfall in the very middle of the town. Other than the radio pumping out the latest hits, the car ride remained mostly quiet between Gracen and Malachi.
She didn’t know where to start.
Never mind what they were doing.
It all still felt a little new. Strange waters meant Gracen liked to take things slow, even a simple car drive if it allowed her to study the man in the driver’s seat. Maybe he didn’t know it, but even quiet, Malachi was more interesting to watch than the many kilometers of highway and the songs on the radio.
He didn’t seem to mind her staring.
If he noticed.