Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
I nodded.
“They’re at the old Mills farm off of sixty-nine. Mills knows you’re back. He said he’d bring them back within the next week.” He stepped away. “Your dog, I believe, is still at Civil’s.”
My eyes closed.
“Thanks, man.”
Travis gave me a small salute, and then took off without another word.
I walked to the front door and watched him walk down the driveway and then blinked at the sight of him getting into a truck with a pretty blonde.
She looked cute, really cute. Definitely not his type, but there were a lot of changes that could happen in four years.
Apparently, Travis doing cute, bubbly blondes was one of them.
I watched the truck disappear down the road and then turned my attention back to the tow truck he’d left me.
It was brand-fucking-new.
There was no doubt in my mind that they just got it.
Why had he trusted me with something so fucking new?
I tossed the keys up into the air, took one more look around, and then walked to my bedroom and stepped up to the safe.
Once I entered the six-digit combination, I opened it, retrieved some cash, and then stared.
All my guns were there. The same exact place that they’d been in when I’d last closed it four years ago.
I’d have to get rid of them.
Just like the assholes who’d put me away, I was dealing with a probation officer who was a douche and a half, too. I could tell from the moment I met with him this morning that he wasn’t going to be my favorite person.
Not at all.
I had eighteen more months on probation before I was finally a free man, and until then, I couldn’t have any fuckin’ alcohol, or firearms, within my vicinity.
I wouldn’t sell them, no. I’d just lock them up somewhere and have someone else watch over them for a while.
Lifting my hand, I trailed my fingers down the barrel of my .45 that I used to carry concealed and felt a wave of unease trail over my skin.
How would I work without the ability to protect myself?
The auto recovery business was a dangerous one, and there wasn’t a single time that I repossessed a truck or a car that it didn’t have at least one hitch in the road.
With my brain in a weird sort of haze, I walked out of the house and to the tow truck.
Normally, I wouldn’t have taken it so early but I had to go pick up Gertie.
I missed that dog like crazy, and it was him who I hated leaving behind the most.
I hoped he still remembered me.
Turns out I needn’t have worried.
The minute that I arrived at Civil’s, the one and only vet in town, it was to find a receptionist at the front desk that I’d never seen before.
Along with the town growing while I was away, apparently so did the vet clinic.
No longer was it a small, quaint clinic. Now it was an ungodly huge, likely multi-million-dollar clinic that looked like a fucking office building instead of a vet.
But whatever.
I didn’t care.
As long as they kept Gertie safe.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist, a woman in her twenties who looked like she was way too dressed up to be working in a vet’s office, asked sweetly.
Too sweet, if you asked me.
“I’m here to pick up my dog,” I said. “Can I talk to Civil?”
The woman tilted her head.
“Civil is no longer with us,” she said. “He passed away last fall. His daughter, however, is. She’s in with a patient now, though.”
My stomach tightened. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is that what’s up with the new remodel?”
She nodded. “When Layne took over, she decided that a revamp was needed.”
I looked around the place.
I didn’t see anything wrong with the old one, but apparently, this new vet did.
Pity.
“Do you think when she’s done with the patient that she will talk to me?” I asked. “I won’t take long.”
I just hoped that Civil had held true to his word and had this woman look after my dog just as well as Civil did.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I’ll have her do that when she’s done.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
A deep bark from the other room had me turning to stare at the closed door.
I knew that bark.
Everything inside of me wanted to go to that door and throw it open, but I didn’t.
My guess was that Gertie knew I was there, too.
He’d always been able to tell; I didn’t expect now to be any different.
I took a seat next to the magazine rack and picked up the first thing I saw, which was a magazine about chickens, and wondered idly if they were hard to care for.
I’d always wanted chickens, but I had never gotten around to getting any, thankfully.
I’d made it to the fifth page, which was talking about egg incubation and how to hatch your own eggs at home, when my name was called.