Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“Is that what you’re wearing on your feet?” He’s pointing to my shoes.
Which are Fifties saddle shoes that came from Sears. I just pulled them off the McBooms sale rack. It’s not authorized apparel and I think it’s cute that Collin noticed. “I’m not putting those pumps back on. My feet were sore yesterday. So this will have to do.”
“You little rebel.” Then he slips his hand around my waist, pulls me close, and kisses me with his minty-fresh breath.
But just as our lips touch, the bells start ringing.
Collin pulls back. “What in God’s name is that?”
“The bells.”
“I can hear the ringing, Lowyn. Why the hell are they doing it now? There are no churches in Disciple.”
“True. There aren’t. But when Simon came on board to replace your daddy, he took offense to the Easter Day Revelation sermon being the call to Revival, so he insisted on adding in bells as last call. So this is last call. It’s about to start. Should we get going?”
Collin’s in a pretty good mood. He did get laid last night. And it was me he was getting laid by. Maybe I’m not anything special in the wider world, but I am to Collin Creed. Even I know this. So his mood has been good. Up until this point.
He sighs. “Maybe we should just skip it.”
“I can’t. You can, if you want. But I have the booth. The teenagers will run it during Revival—I am playing Fainting Woman with Fan for week one, so I gotta be at the service to collapse at the proper time—but after that, Bonnie and Lydia are wrangling the children’s choir between performances and Mark and Matthew are running the rides. So it’s just me in the booth today. Bryn can’t take off two days in a row at the inn. Guests would shit a vintage brick if they had to eat pre-made sandwiches and chips two days in a row.”
His smile starts small but it grows pretty quick. “Do you even realize how weird this place is? Or have you just grown immune to the insanity?”
I bob my head a little, thinking. “Little bit of both, I guess. I do know we’re special. And I do know I like it.” I grin back at him.
“OK.” He offers me his hand, resigned to the fact that he’s part of this again. “Let’s go then.”
As soon as we turn the corner and start heading up Main Street, the cry of newsie boys catches our attention. There are a lot of people on Main, all of them heading up the hill to the tent. The kids hawking the Revival News, boys and girls, are dressed up in their proper costumes, including the trademark cap.
“Prodigal son returns! One dollar! Get it now, people! Don’t miss this edition! Get it now!”
That’s what they’re all crying.
Which makes Collin grumble. “Prodigal son. It doesn’t even make sense.”
“It’s a show, Collin. It doesn’t need to make sense. You’re just playing a part like everyone else.” I steer us over to the nearest newsie—a little girl called Amy. She’s got her long, brown hair tied back, and her sweet face looks very, very cute under that newsboy hat. “I’ll take one, Amy.”
She makes a face at me. One of those wide-eyed, all-teeth-smile faces.
“What? What’s wrong with you?”
“Ummm. Miss McBride, I hope you don’t hold it against me. I’m just a delivery girl.” And she holds up the paper. It features Collin, of course. Someone snapped a picture of him yesterday because he’s in his costume and he’s looking angry about something. That was expected.
What we didn’t expect is a picture of me—Fainting Woman with Fan.
Only I’m not Fainting Woman with Fan. I’ve been recast as Widow Cries as Murderer Returns Home. They’re using a picture of me from Season Four, when my character was called Distraught Woman in Stockings and I was crying because my fictional sister was rounded up and put in the paddy wagon with a dozen other young ladies for prostitution in Revenant.
Collins grabs the paper. I open my little purse and give Amy a dollar so she can scuttle out of the way and avoid the meltdown that’s about to happen. Collin shakes the paper at me. “What the actual fuck?”
And just as he says that, someone yells, “There he is! That’s him!” And when I say ‘someone’ I mean Rosie Harlow. “That’s him! The murderer! Collin Creed, the murderer!”
I make a face of what the hell are you doing, Rosie?
She makes a face back. Hers says, Sorry, but Jim Bob told me to.
Suddenly, the crowd of people who just a moment ago were peacefully heading up the hill to the call for Revival all turn and look at us.
“What are you doing with him?” Lettie Gainer accuses, pointing her finger at me. “He killed your husband!”