Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 72442 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72442 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Dre.
The made-up man on the porch must be her man.
The one she spoke about all the time during her visits with Tray.
I felt my stomach sour.
“Well,” she paused. “I’ve been napping in this hammock for a year now. Every day for an hour and a half—when I’m off. Even if it was on your property—which it isn’t—you can let me use it.”
I could have had she not been such a little shit about it.
Oh, and asked.
“I might have had I not put it in for me,” I said. “And this had not been my property.”
“Dre!” Harleigh called. “Is this your property or is it his?”
Dre shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Dre looked bored. He was also staring at the house across the road as if there was something—or someone—he was practically willing to come walking out of it.
She sighed. “I’ll get some surveyors out tomorrow. In the meantime…you can let me stay here, right?”
I felt my stomach clench.
No, no I could not.
I just…couldn’t.
“No,” I said. “And if you really want to see the property line, you can look at the difference in our grass. Mine is St. Augustine grass, and yours is Bermuda. Look at the differences in color right now.”
She did, then frowned. “Mine’s brown and yours is dead.”
Mine wasn’t dead.
“No,” I disagreed. “Mine’s just dormant. It’ll be greener than yours by mid-summer, though.”
She was rolling her eyes. “What does this have to do with anything?”
“Mine’s also thicker and more lush. I laid each piece of sod down with my own bare hands,” I said. “Yours was spread by seed.”
She rolled her eyes. “Again, not seeing the problem.”
“I’m just saying that you can clearly see the difference in the grass between my property line and yours. It’s a very distinguishable line if you only cared to look,” I gritted out.
“And anyway,” she said. “You literally have been gone for like—forever. Have you ever heard of ‘use it or lose it?’”
I clenched my hands to keep from grabbing the sides of the hammock and just dumping her onto the ground.
“Yes,” I said. “But unfortunately, other circumstances kept me from using it. Now that I’m home, though, I can guarantee you that I’ll use it.”
She waved that away with a sweep of her hand.
“I’m seriously getting annoyed with this conversation,” she said as she stood up. “I’ll check you later.”
With that, she swayed inside, her shapely ass taunting me as she moved across her yard.
I watched her go for all of a half a second before I nearly slapped myself on the forehead.
Married.
She’s married.
Married. Married. Married.
I chanted that to myself as I walked to the bike and grabbed my pack.
Hand clenched tight around the handle of my bag, I made my way to the front door, then used the key that I hadn’t used in years to open the door.
The first thing to hit me was the smell of Pine Sol.
The second was the fact that every single trace of Vanessa was gone.
Thank. Fucking. God.
Tossing my bag onto the couch as I passed it, I made my way into the kitchen and washed my hands, thankful to see that my sister had stocked it for me as I’d asked her to do a few weeks ago.
And, as I looked out of my kitchen window that had a pretty set of curtains that I most assuredly hadn’t put up and watched as the blonde from next door came waltzing out and got back in the hammock, I knew then that I was screwed.
Walking to the back door, I paused by a set of panels, chose the one I wanted, and then turned it on.
The satisfying screech of a very pissed off woman rent the air, and I grinned as I walked back to the kitchen window.
Seeing her there, lying on my St. Augustine grass, soaking wet now from the sprinklers that were going full blast right next to her, I couldn’t help the smile that formed across my face.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
Chapter 2
Y’all’dve- triple contraction—y’all would have.
-Actual words used in the South
Harleigh
“This is all you could find on him?” I asked Janie.
“Why are you using valuable resources to run a complete background check on your new neighbor?” my father, Max Tremaine, asked as he came into the living room.
I suppose it was his right to walk in wherever he damn well pleased and all seeing as it was his house, but I hadn’t expected him back or I would’ve done this business elsewhere.
“Yes,” Janie said, ignoring my father in lieu of answering my question. “Not much to find, honestly. He was an exemplary person right up until the time he beat the shit out of that man with his bare hands.”
It wasn’t every day that you heard that.
Which was why my father, who’d stopped at the side of the couch with his arms crossed, turned his eyes to me and said, “You have a new neighbor that beat the shit out of someone with his bare hands?”