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)
Malachi didn’t know how to make that happen considering he could barely stay two entire days in his old valley town without feeling like someone might run him out of it. Gracen, with her roots so deeply entrenched here, sure as hell wasn’t about to leave.
He couldn’t make it work.
At least, not in his head.
It only made things all the more fucked up for Malachi that it had to feel so incredibly right when he was with Gracen at the same damn time.
“Could we do something else tomorrow, then?” Gracen asked. “I have something I want to show you.”
The lie stuck in his throat like tar, but he forced it out anyway. “Maybe. Isn’t it supposed to rain?”
She shot him an odd look from the side at his random mention of the weather as the front door opened and then slammed closed. Delaney flew into the kitchen with a box of beer in both hands that she dropped onto the table with a thunk.
“See, I told you I’d grab a box,” Delaney proclaimed.
Gracen laughed and crossed the kitchen. “It's been in the back of your Jeep since yesterday, right?”
“Who said—”
Gracen ripped open the top of the box of beer to pull one bottle out. “Besides the fact that it’s warm, the liquor store is closed on Sundays.”
Delaney snatched the beer right back, and used the sleeve of her sweater to crack the top open. “Warm beer is still beer to me, so. Where’s the poutine?”
She punctuated that statement by tipping the bottle of beer up for a drink.
The bag of take-out in question waited on the kitchen counter. Malachi couldn’t lie and say that the girls’ distraction—digging through the food they’d ordered and separating the foam containers respectively—didn’t bring him some relief.
Gracen wasn’t looking his way anymore.
He didn’t have to keep up the lie for a second.
Simply put, Malachi was a coward. If he ever needed more proof of that fact, he only had to look back on this moment. Despite knowing he planned to leave town the next day and couldn’t see himself returning unless he knew it wouldn’t affect his sister’s plans to break free from her current circumstances, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Gracen. She’d seen firsthand the way the church affected and controlled its members. There were more than enough rumors to go around about just how dangerous it could be for the people who dared to oppose it or them in any way. He couldn’t ignore the fact that it was a possibility his presence could not only cause his sister trouble, but possibly Gracen, too.
What if the pizza fire was Beau-family related in some way?
How would Frankie Beau react to learning just how close Malachi—and by de facto, Gracen—had came to Alora? She was already on Frankie’s radar through Delaney’s family connection. This was her home, too. Malachi didn’t want to give his stepfather a reason to make her life in the valley town a living hell.
Malachi couldn’t justify taking any risks when it came to Gracen.
Not while she was still smiling.
Happy.
He didn’t want her to think he was choosing someone else over her even if that’s exactly what it looked like. The world didn’t revolve around him, he was rarely the most important person in the room, and there were bigger things that meant more than his wants and needs.
“Double cheeseburger, right?” Gracen asked over her shoulder.
Her grin stretched wide while she stood next to her best friend—still happy and unknowing of the war inside him.
How she should be, he thought.
“Yeah, babe. Mine’s the double.”
Malachi could keep things just the way they were for her a little while longer. For the night, anyway. She deserved that from him, at least.
Another question lingered in the back of his mind, not quite ready to let go, all things considered.
*
It took a few hours for the beers to chill. Well, at a temperature Gracen considered drinkable. She still complained it was flat, and he had to agree. Still, they made do.
Malachi didn’t bring up his exit plans to Gracen in all that time.
Not while they binged a medical drama downstairs with Delaney before retiring to Gracen’s bedroom for the evening. Not as they slipped into the tub together, sinking deep into hot, bubbly water with two cold beers and a book for her to read. He’d held the book for her, flipping pages and reading a steamy scene when she begged him to.
Apparently, he had the voice for it.
Malachi asked what that meant.
“When it gets all ... smooth.” She’d wiggled against his wet chest while she said it, after adding, “And deep, too.”
What could he say to that?
He still didn’t tell her when they slipped under the sheets that he would be leaving soon. In a handful of hours. If he could help it, before the sun broke in the sky the next morning, even. The drive back to the Miramichi was better in the morning hours on a bike before the sun became high and unbearable. He hated when he needed to constantly make stops to break.