Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 132512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Ned grinned at him, and his eyes glowed with joy, like the leaves of a tree lit up by the summer sun. Cole pulled him closer for one more kiss.
Behind Ned, their younger selves stared at them from a tinplate on the mantelpiece, and while there ought to have been accusation in their eyes, they smiled at Cole with fondness. Every time he looked at that picture, he was reminded of how happy he’d been, and that was before Ned had even kissed him back. Just being around him had been the spark to ignite dynamite in Cole’s heart.
Ned laughed and pulled away. “At this rate, I’ll be making breakfast, not dinner.”
Not yet, Cole’s heart whispered, but it would never have enough, and its foolish desires needed curbing sooner rather than later.
“I think Dog’s jealous,” Cole noted the moment the large furball with pointy ears pushed its way between Ned’s feet.
Ned laughed and scooted down to cuddle Dog’s cheeks. “No wonder,” he cooed to the dog. “Strange man comes into his house, takes his name, takes his master away for the night…”
“I reckon it was the other way around. You gave him my name without permission,” Cole said with a slap to Ned’s buttock and stepped away when Dog tried to rub his muzzle against Cole’s leg. That beast wouldn’t give it a rest, undeterred by Cole’s obvious disinterest in its affections.
Cole could hardly believe this was the monstrosity that had almost chewed his arm off on the night they’d met, but as Ned petted Dog with a wide smile, envy sparked in Cole without warning. For a moment he wanted to be that furry beast, free of constraints that kept him from accepting the future Ned offered him each day by not mentioning that the number of days they’d agreed on was long over. Dog trusted Ned with his life, and Cole wasn’t capable of such vulnerability anymore. Even after those two months of bliss.
Of coffee in bed, of good food made for him, of hunting together, and evenings of games enjoyed by the warm fireplace. Cole didn’t enjoy books, but with not much else to do, Ned started reading to him from volumes he’d stolen over the years. The stories allowed Cole to forget about the world beyond their cabin as he laid with his head in Ned’s lap and listened to stories relayed by some poor woman from Arabia trying to prevent her own death by keeping a mad king invested in the plots. Ned had a beautiful voice—warm and low, with a bit of a rasp, and after the first two weeks, Cole stopped slapping away the hand absentmindedly petting his head.
It was almost as if they were back together, but even the sweetest lie could only last so long. Deep down, Cole always expected a knife in the back. An arm tightening around his neck. Empty promises. And while Ned had been true to his vow, didn’t attempt to make any more liquor, and tried to prove his sincerity each day, Cole remained wary as he listened to his faint snoring deep in the night.
A happy man was a complacent man, and if he stared into the sky, too pleased with the heat of sunlight on skin, he might just miss the deadly scorpion crawling into his sleeve. A cold sensation drizzled down Cole’s back, and he picked up his clothes, suddenly in a hurry to get dressed.
Ned frowned as he set the pot of water on the stove and got the fire going under it. “Did you say you wanted coffee?”
Had anyone else asked that question, Cole would have dismissed it as a slip of memory, but the moonshine abuse had left Ned’s head full of holes that made him forgetful.
Ned remembered their past well but often struggled with planning, timing, and focus. He’d feed Dog twice, forget that he’d already groomed their horses, or where he’d put his shoes. Cole at first thought that those minor issues would soon start annoying the hell out of him, but instead, they created a visceral need to protect Ned from the world every time they occurred.
He used to have painfully realistic dreams of murdering Ned in cold blood, but now he was afraid to leave, because what if Ned forgot where he set up snares and stepped in them? It had already happened once, and Ned had the marks of iron teeth on his calf to prove it.
“I did, thank you,” he said, because pointing out Ned’s forgetfulness always caused grief. Ned would blame himself for falling so low and letting the booze poison his body to a point where complete recovery seemed no longer possible, and Cole’s heart would bleed in silence.
Ned poured them a steaming cup each with a smile that made him look like his younger self again. His eyes twinkled with sweet innocence, as if the things he’d done in the past were only a bad dream. This was the man Cole had stolen out of the O’Leary nest, because he’d wanted him too much to let go. In a twisted way all the murder and carnage Ned had caused, had been inspired by Cole. He was even responsible for the fact that their coffee had been stolen from some poor fellow who’d had the misfortune to encounter the Wolfman. And that made their inevitable parting tougher still.