Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 132031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
She lifted a hand, stopping him from saying anything more, and she was right. They were having a useless conversation. He’d tried to make her see herself more clearly for years.
“I’m doing a breast lift tomorrow, then I’ll be done for a while. Call Keyes. Your father says Keyes went over and saw Smoke. It didn’t go well. Smoke’s not expected to live through the week. Sounds like Keyes could use a friend.” His mom used the perfect diversion.
“Stupid motherfucker,” Dev murmured about Smoke. He stood, grabbing the pieces of the burner phone. He’d toss those as he rode out. “I hate that fuckin’ cunt bastard. He can’t die fast enough for me. Why’d Keyes even go over there?”
“Language, Dev. I’m still your mother.”
He rolled his eyes like he always did when she got on to him about his colorful language. He’d talked this way since he was a toddler. Eventually she’d have to get over it.
“Be careful tomorrow.” He opened the office door. “If you need a ride, call Millie,” he tossed over his shoulder, teasingly. When he hadn’t offered himself as her driver, she gave a huff. The joke hit its mark.
He met his father halfway up the stairs leading to the office that he took down two at a time.
“We have a run tonight,” Fox said, his voice gruff and stern.
Where his mother searched for her youth, his old man had years of worry written in every sun and wind damaged line of his face. He had fifteen years on his mother. Old man was really beginning to take on a new meaning.
Dev nodded. The stealthy, secret drug runs were an adrenaline rush. Exactly what he needed to help tamp down this excessive energy pulsing through him. Only he, Keyes, and Mack, another club brother, went on these side hustles that his father had brokered years ago. They were designated as the muscle of the operation. A show of force against those who purchased from them.
They were lucrative and low risk. The club acted as the middleman in the transaction. They made loads of money with minimal effort, and that only came in the manner of brute force, making sure shit didn’t go sideways.
“Keyes?” Dev asked. The single name was enough of a question as to whether he should say anything to Keyes about tonight.
“Can you?” his old man asked over his shoulder at the top of the stairs.
Dev lifted a confirming hand as he started toward his sled.
The minute the sun hit his face, everything in his world righted. It didn’t matter that the oppressive heat hadn’t let up for barely a minute this fall. He loved the smells, feels, and sounds of being outside. The gentle breeze was always moving, circulating, finding its way. Much like the thoughts in his head. He and that bitch, Mother Nature, sure had shit in common. Dev palmed his phone to see if Keyes had time for lunch.
~~~
The soul-filling scenery might just be the best reason Ryan Cashin James, “Cash” for a good while now, had chosen to spend his two-week vacation in Arkansas’s river country. Truth be told, it had little to do with this being his parents’ most recent forever home.
He hadn’t been too keen on the RV his parents had chosen to call home for most of his life. But the clean air and slow pace spoke to something deeper and meaningful inside his hardening heart.
The spiritual awakening that happened every time he jogged these trails caused him to run a little farther than normal and kept each of his steps hitting the pavement in front of him, even as sweat dripped off all parts of his body.
Apparently this region was locked in a late-in-the-season heatwave. They had experienced some of the warmest temperatures ever recorded for the river country. It was damned hot outside.
In his head, he heard his mom’s voice scolding him for his use of profanity.
No matter his age or how far underground his life had taken him, she was the voice inside his head, asking him to be the best possible person he could be.
If only life were that easy.
In the real world, the relentless negative forces and roughly etched lines of good versus evil were far harder to navigate than his bohemian missionary parents prepared him for.
The tragic horrors he’d witnessed firsthand had caused him to run, bike, and lift weights to an excessive degree to help keep his head straight and eyes focused forward on the prize of a better life for everyone involved.
He spotted his parents’ RV that had seen better days twenty-six years ago when his mother, Marilyn, and his father, Norman, put their life savings—which, if he remembered correctly, was roughly five hundred dollars—into a used travel trailer and began their vine style ministry. The trailer represented their traveling Sunday services as well as their home. To this day, they were still wide-eyed idealists, determined to change the world with the power of love.