Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 74501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
It was the best Dutch could remember.
“Murtagh, don’t eat that ribbon,” Georgie ordered.
“Mwrr.”
“Murtagh, don’t make me come over there,” Georgie snapped.
“Mwrr!” Murtagh fired back, then flounced away from the tree and jumped into Jag’s lap.
“Yeah, it sucks, but we don’t need that comin’ out the other end, dude,” Jag told him, curling him in his arms.
“Murr-ow,” Murtagh replied.
Jag started stroking.
Murtagh started purring.
“Okay, this was the night Boz got so tossed, he challenged every brother to an arm wrestling contest,” his mother said, and Dutch looked down to a photo of his father sitting in a chair, his mom draped over his back with both her arms around him, both of them looking at the same thing, laughing. “He lost. To everyone but Chew. We should have known about Chew right then, shouldn’t we have, baby?” she asked Hound.
Hound grunted.
Keely turned a page.
* * * *
Meanwhile
Meanwhile…
Two weeks later, in a heat snap that was not unknown during Denver winters, the first time Dutch could take his Georgie on his bike…
Georgiana was surprised, when Dutch went for his wallet to pay, the big, frightening-looking barista said, “That’s on me, brother.”
They exchanged a look.
More surprising, Dutch didn’t fight it and took his hand from his pocket.
Five minutes later, she took a sip of the best coffee she’d ever tasted.
Apparently, it was true what everyone said: the coffee at Fortnum’s Used Books was the best in Denver.
Dutch got his and took her hand to walk her back into the stacks, but he exchanged another glance with the biker-looking guy who was behind the book desk.
She didn’t ask.
If Dutch wanted her to know, he’d tell her.
Though, from what she could read, it seemed the thing that was being communicated was that something was all good.
Georgiana and Dutch spent the next two hours in the stacks, twenty minutes of it making their selections, the rest of it curled up together in a big chair in the way back, sipping coffee and reading.
They walked out to buy their books when Dutch heard Georgie’s stomach growling.
He took her out to dinner and then he took her home and right to bed.
It would be the next day, Sunday, when Georgie won a round and talked Dutch into letting her be the one to get up and get them coffee.
And while it was brewing, she went and grabbed the books from the mudroom and stowed them on one of Dutch’s many shelves.
By the picture of his dad.
She reached out a finger and touched the miniscule Chaos patch on the man’s jacket.
Then she whispered, “Thank you.”
After that, she poured herself and her man some coffee.
And went back to bed.
The End