Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
There were only two ways he was going through life—loving Tulsi or pretending to hate her while he ignored the hollow place in his life and heart where his other half was supposed to be. And he didn’t want to hate Tulsi. No matter how hurt he was right now, all he wanted to do was hold her in his arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay.
“It doesn’t matter,” Pike murmured, swiping the last of the tears from his face with his fist.
“What?” Mia asked with a sniff.
“It doesn’t matter. None of it fucking matters.” He stood, lifting his hat and running a clawed hand through his hair. “I love her and she loves me and we have a little girl who’s going to need us when she wakes up. I’m going to go find her.”
“Can I come with you?” Mia asked, rising from her chair. “You’re right. There’ll be time to talk through the bullshit later. Right now, love is more important.” Mia’s lips trembled. “She’s my best friend and she shouldn’t be alone. She’s no good at it, especially when she’s upset.”
“Come on.” Pike held out his arm, tucking his sister tight to his side as they left the collection room and pushed through the swinging doors into the waiting room.
Pike’s eyes scanned the pale pink room with the faded blue chairs, but there was no sign of Tulsi or Sawyer. He was about to suggest to Mia that they check outside when Sawyer hurried in through the automatic doors, a worried expression on his face and Tulsi’s phone clenched in one hand. Bubba and Marisol weren’t far behind him.
“What happened?” Mia asked, stepping forward to meet Sawyer. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Sawyer said, shaking his head. “I went outside to check on her and found her phone on the sidewalk, but no sign of Tulsi. The truck’s still here and I have the keys so wherever she went she’s on foot. I was about to go after her when Bubba and Marisol showed up.”
“I’ve got the rental car,” Bubba said. “Marisol and I can check my place and that side of downtown.”
“I figured we could check the shop and her dad’s,” Sawyer said. “I don’t think she should be by herself right now. I’m obviously not a doctor, but I’ve seen shell shock and I didn’t like the look on her face after she talked to the woman at the front desk.”
Mia cursed. “I should have come out sooner. I should have known this was going to break her.”
“She’s not going to break,” Pike insisted. “Not as long as Clem needs her. We just need to find her. Mia, I’ll ride home with you and Sawyer. If she’s not at the shop, then I’ll take your truck and head out to her dad’s while you and Sawyer check the other side of downtown.”
“We’ll check the church, too,” Sawyer said, backing toward the door. “She might have gone there.”
Fifteen minutes later, after arriving at Mia’s place and finding it locked and empty, Pike was on his way to the Hearst ranch. As he navigated the familiar roads, passing the small family farms and entrances to larger ranches he’d driven past dozens of times as he burned up the road between Austin and Lonesome Point that spring seven years ago, he grew more and more certain that love was the only thing that mattered.
He and Tulsi had already wasted so much time clinging to old hurts and stubbornly refusing to admit that neither of them had moved on. He was never going to move on, he was never going to get over Tulsi, and he didn’t want to. He wanted to be her lover and her friend and the father of her children—Clementine and those other blond babies he’d been dreaming about—for the rest of his life.
And then, finally, he would be living the dream—his dream. It wasn’t baseball or fame or money that filled the void inside of him; it was the blonde in the rumpled dress with her hair falling down around her bare shoulders, standing in a dusty pen, hugging a black stallion around the neck in the fading light.
Pike pulled the truck slowly to a stop a good hundred feet from the fence, not wanting to spook Tulsi or the horse. The animal was one of the largest Pike had seen and he didn’t look happy. His muscles corded beneath his coat and his nostrils flared. As Pike crossed the yard, he got a better look at the beast’s eyes and wasn’t surprised that he looked wild. This horse wasn’t even green broke and Pike’s gut said the creature hadn’t spent any enjoyable time with people. He was either fresh from the wild or he’d been abused by a former owner at some point down the line.