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)
“Hello?” I answered.
“You don’t happen to know why I have three goats and a dog tied up outside the police station with a note to me on it, do you?”
That was my brother.
“What?” I was confused.
“A dog. Three goats. Tied to my cruiser.”
My brows furrowed.
“What does the note say?” I asked distractedly.
I honestly didn’t know why I would care whether he had a dog and three goats tied to his cruiser.
“Got a note. From your woman.”
My heart froze.
Now I cared that he had a dog and three goats tied to his cruiser.
“How do you know it was my woman and why would she have anything to do with that?” I asked, sitting up straighter.
Not comfortable having this conversation in the car with Rafe, I pulled the door handle and bailed out of the truck, heading to the tailgate so I could lean against it.
“Because the note is signed ‘Kennedy’,” he drawled. “How else would I know they belonged to her?”
A sick feeling of dread hit me.
She wouldn’t leave…would she?
“What did the note say?”
“Nothing that I’ll be sharing with you,” he shot back. “Get here and get these goats. I live in a fucking subdivision. I won’t be able to do anything with them.”
Then he hung up, leaving me staring at the fence of my worst enemy.
Knowing that I wouldn’t be going in there today.
Not today and maybe not ever.
Not if it meant losing Kennedy.
Chapter 21
Consider this diem carped.
-T-shirt
Evander
I went to Kennedy’s house first.
It was an hour past dawn, and the only thing in the entire house making noise was the hum of the lights as they buzzed above me.
I was staring at the note, dread making its way through my gut.
The note that said only a few words. However, those words were enough to chill me straight to the bone.
Evander,
I’m tired of being second best.
I deserve to be someone’s first choice.
Thank you for giving me a few great weeks. I’ll remember and cherish them for the rest of my life.
Take care of my chickens.
And that was it. Not another damn word was said. It wasn’t even signed.
When I went to her closet, it was to see most of her clothes gone, some had fallen hastily to the floor. The kitchen was empty, her coffee cup still in the sink.
It was as if she’d left for a short weekend.
When I went outside, it was to find her truck still there.
I was supposed to look at it and hadn’t yet.
It’d died the day prior, again, and I hadn’t found time to look at it.
Her goats were gone, though, as well as her dog.
My eyes went to the chicken pen, and I realized another thing.
I didn’t know how to take care of chickens.
I’d seen her do it but was that really all there was to it?
“She’s gone?”
I looked behind me to see that Rafe hadn’t left. He was still there, standing in the middle of the yard, waiting for me to make my decision.
Go back…or chase after Kennedy.
“She’s better off without me,” I said.
He snorted.
“I thought that about my sister once.” Rafe looked away. “What I thought was only going to be a few months turned into years. It took me months to get back into her good graces, and even now, months later, I’m still wondering if she only tolerates me because she knows that I miss her.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
He was right, though.
Kennedy may be better off without me, but at this point, I didn’t think I could live without her.
She’d wormed herself into my life, planted herself so deeply into my goddamn heart that I didn’t think I’d ever be man enough to let her live without me.
Why make it harder to get her back when I had the power to do it right now just by saying three words to her.
Three words that I felt. Deeply.
“Fuck,” I growled. “Let’s go.”
Rafe waved me off. “I’ll keep doing the recon.”
And that was that.
He waved me off and stepped back into the shadows, disappearing into the shadows like he had never been there in the first place, leaving me free to follow after my wayward woman.
I turned away from the yard and stared blankly at the wall.
The only question was, where did she go?
***
Four hours later, I found her on a bus halfway to El Paso—the bus’s destination.
The next hour was spent following behind the bus, waiting for it to stop. After sixty miles of it, I realized that it wasn’t going to stop—not any time soon.
So I did what any sane man would do.
I rode my motorcycle past the bus, cut over in front of it, and started hitting my brakes.
“Here’s to hoping you’re paying attention, motherfucker,” I growled, watching the bus in my rearview.
The bus didn’t slow at first.
I assumed he thought I was taking the exit, but when I didn’t, the bus started to slow.