Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
He offered them to Bubbles.
Bubbles didn’t take them.
“You know I’m not gonna walk out of here with that wine without paying for it,” Riggs told him. “Take the money.”
Riggs knew Bubbles would take it before he took it, just as he knew he wouldn’t enter that income as a line item in his books against the expense of the wine, and not only because that wine might not have been from a visit to Sonoma, but there was a possibility it was bought out of the trunk of a car after some asshole stole it from another bar or someplace else.
Instead, the man would blow it at a poker game or a steak dinner at The Lodge.
Riggs just had to hope Bubbles wouldn’t do him dirty that way.
A thought that prompted him to demand, “And don’t start a pool about Weaver Cabin.”
Bubbles was shoving the money in his back pocket when he asked, “Why?”
He wasn’t about to mention Nadia Antonov. Not to Bubbles. The Vodka Princess’s mere existence would set Bubbles to running his mouth. But if his friend caught sight of her or saw a picture of her, and he knew a piece that hot was living that close to Riggs, that shit would go viral.
“I didn’t move up there to have aggravation, Bubs. If that cabin gets attention, it’s gonna affect me one way or another. When I’m home, I wanna do what I wanna do. Not have folks sniffing around my lake or people harassing me about shit when I’m in town. It’s all bullshit, you know it, everyone knows it.”
“I don’t know it.”
Right, he forgot for a second.
His friend was a good guy, he’d give you the shirt off his back, and he was a good time.
But he was a doofus.
“Even if you don’t, put a lid on it. You think you owe me a marker, you do that, consider us square.”
That got to him.
Bubbles smiled so big, you could see the missing tooth deep in the left side of his mouth that he tried hard to hide.
Jesus, this guy.
Riggs grabbed the bottle from the shelf, the other that Bubbles still held, said, “Thanks, man. Later.”
And then he was out of there.
He had someone else to visit that day, and he hoped that went a lot better than his breakfast with Harry and this deal with Bubbles.
He also had to get home and clean up his yard.
After that, he had to figure out how to smooth things over with Nadia Antonov.
He was only looking forward to one of those things.
So that was what he was going to do next.
SIX
The Only Ones That Matter
Riggs
Early evening, Riggs caught sight of her while standing at his kitchen sink.
She was sitting on her pier, staring at the lake.
She was in the distance, but he could see she didn’t move much, except she was drinking something.
She wasn’t reading or talking on the phone.
Just staring at the lake.
And Riggs knew exactly what that was about. He felt it flow straight through his soul.
Goddamn.
Fuck him and fuck Harry Moran.
He’d enjoyed his last visit in town, grabbed some groceries, came back to his place and picked up the mess around his house.
Once he’d hit the shower, ran a comb through his hair and dressed, he went back to the window to see she wasn’t on the pier.
Probably inside, making dinner.
It was time to head out.
He nabbed one of the bottles and made his way to the trail.
The lanterns on her back porch were lit, along with the line of lights Brenda had asked him to tack up around the edges of the porch roof. They were Christmas lights covered in alternating pink, blue, green and yellow plastic flowers. Dave had hated them. Riggs wasn’t a fan either. Brenda was gleeful the minute she saw them up.
Now, he got it.
That tableau suited Nadia.
More to the point, it was peaceful and pretty, and it suited what Riggs felt Nadia needed.
He walked up the steps to the back porch and frowned at the screen door.
He’d had several conversations with Dave about that old wooden door with the big screen in it. The cabin needed a secure storm door, and not only because they got storms. It was safer. Anybody could jump right through that screen without much effort. A storm door would pose a problem to someone who wanted to get in that the person inside wanted to keep out.
Dave and Brenda had dumped a load into that cabin (mostly Brenda), and Riggs could understand why Dave tried to find things to save money on.
Nadia there now, Riggs reckoned they could have done without the flower lights and the fucking pillows everywhere and bought decent security doors.
He knocked on the wood, and his frown intensified because even the sound of his knuckles striking made it sound rickety.
She appeared at the top of the hall. Her mass of hair pulled in a high ponytail. No makeup, wearing a dark-green sundress with tiny pink flowers on it that hit above her knees, the thick straps tied in bows on top of her shoulders. Her feet were bare. Her skin glowed with a light tan.