Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
When we pulled up to the exit of the diner, I looked left, right, then left again and pulled out.
Only after we were cruising to the outskirts of town did I finally reach forward and unbutton my pants.
Instant relief.
“Ughhh,” I sighed.
He looked over at me—he’d been looking out the opposite side of the car since we’d left—and raised a brow in question.
I ignored him.
It was about two minutes of driving out of town before he pointed to a road.
I frowned, not having seen it before.
Blue Ridge was small. Smaller still than Accident, where he ‘lived.’
“What’s that?” I asked him, grabbing the shifter and preparing to turn.
“That’s the road that we all used to live on,” he called over the wind. “I haven’t been to the house since my mom died.”
I felt like a punch had taken me right in the stomach.
He’d never been back?
That was awful.
I’d only had one death in my life—my mom when I was twelve—and when she’d died, it was as if I’d buried myself in all her stuff. All her favorite things were all over my bedroom wall. Her favorite books were on my shelf, and I read them once a year in memory of her.
“Maybe you should go,” I said, though he acted like he didn’t hear me.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that he needed to stop avoiding it. Avoiding it was only making it harder for him to go.
So, on instinct, I thought, ‘to hell with it’ and slowed down.
He looked over at me with confusion. I could feel his gaze steadily on my face.
And when it was clear, I turned a bitch in the middle of the road, only hit grass with my left tire, and was traveling back in the opposite direction in seconds.
I knew the moment that he realized what I was doing.
His hand fisted on his thigh, and I could practically feel his gaze turning from curious to angry.
I took the turn that he’d suggested.
Then dead-ended into a gate at the end of the road that nobody lived on.
Nobody, apparently, but him.
“Is this beachfront?” I wondered when we came to a silent halt at the gate.
He didn’t say anything.
I got out and walked up to the gate.
It was a simple iron double swing gate with a chain and a lock.
I walked back to him and held my hand out for the keys.
I knew he had them.
Someone had to put the lock on.
When I turned around and looked at him with a raised brow that clearly said ‘come unlock this.’ He grimaced.
But his feet moved toward the locked gate.
Sure, he moved as if he was walking toward his own death, but he moved.
What he also did was unlock the gate with a key that he carried with him on a keyring that had a plastic jeweled heart on it.
I’d bet money his sister had given that to him once upon a time.
I pulled the lock off and pushed the gate open wide.
The gate, which looked old, slid open as if it’d been oiled daily. Used and well taken care of.
“Why are your pants unbuttoned?”
I looked over at him.
He was looking down at my pants. Or, more accurately, my exposed belly from where my pants were now hanging wide open, and I’d forgotten about them.
“Well.” I paused. “I was super, duper full.”
His lips quirked up at that. But that quirk fell right off his face when he got a good look at the house in front of him.
It was as if the house was stuck in time.
Also, the yard was meticulously maintained. Most likely there was some sort of caretaker that came out here, made sure the yard looked nice, and things were well taken care of.
As if he could hear my thoughts, he answered them.
“There’s a girl,” he said, “that comes out here. She was my sister’s best friend and owns a lawn service.” He looked around with a critical eye. “She’s been taking care of it for me since everything happened.”
Since his mom was lost at sea, and he went to jail for kicking Oberon Kalb’s ass so badly, he still had to use a wheelchair when it rained.
“This place looks great,” I said softly, my gaze taking in the beautiful two-story house, the impeccable yard, the porch swing, and even the sight of the ocean beyond the house’s roof and along the sides of the house. “Looks like y’all made some memories, too.”
I said that as I passed a palm tree that was surrounded with decorative rocks and knick-knacks.
Some looked better than others, while the ones that had to be the oldest—a couple of painted rocks with tiny handprints on them—looked like they were fading with the aging sun.
He looked down at the handprinted rocks and then picked up a fairy.
“My sister, Jacksyn, loved fairies. She was all about everything fantasy related. Loved reading books about fae and paranormal fantasy. Got every single fairy item she came into contact with. Built these little fairy houses, and then strategically made little fairy gardens with them all over.” He paused. “My mom and dad indulged her, since she lived on the college campus. Everything out here fairy related is… was… hers.”