Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Something was wrong.
She wouldn’t let him go.
“Everything is fine,” Delaney said over her shoulder, forcing herself to meet Bexley’s stare where she lingered near the kitchen. “Give me a minute?”
Her cousin wrapped the fluffy housecoat tighter around her sprite-like frame. “Yeah, sure.”
It took Bexley more than a handful of seconds to actually make her exit from view. Back in the hallway, Lucas’ expression turned pained as he squeezed the bridge of his nose with still shaking fingers.
“Let me know how I can help you right now,” Delaney said.
Lucas exhaled harshly. “I was trying to do that when I came here, help myself, I mean, but now I’m wondering if I didn’t think it through.”
He laughed a hollow sound.
It hurt Delaney’s heart.
“You didn’t actually tell me why you showed up here,” she pointed out. “Starting there might help.”
It certainly couldn’t hurt.
“Would you do something crazy?”
His question had her brow dipping low. “Crazy?”
“Foolish, maybe,” he muttered. “That might be the better word.”
“Foolish,” she echoed.
“I’m taking a few days, just a handful, away,” Lucas explained.
Although, not well.
“Where?” Delaney asked.
“I own a hurting camp—a little place.” He shook his head, but something wistful flashed across his features all the same. “We spent weekends there with our grandfather.”
“We?”
“My brother and I,” he clarified, but otherwise, offered nothing more about his brother.
“Oh. Nearby?”
It was possible.
The entire Saint John River traveled for what seemed like forever along and through small rural communities with no end in sight. Surrounded by kilometers upon kilometers of raw land and farmers’ fields that rolled up and down for days along the peninsula. There were lots of spots outside of Fredericton where someone could keep a hunting camp deep in the woods without the barest hint of civilization.
Lucas shook his head. “Further upriver. Birch Ridge. You probably never heard of it.”
“I have. I do know it, actually,” Delaney replied. “My friend, Gracen, likes to hike. Maggie’s Falls is a great trek and a good pay off, so it’s one of her favorite spots.”
And only an hour and half drive from Delaney’s hometown. She didn’t mention that, or how close the location was to her friend’s home on The Flats.
Lucas nodded absentmindedly, but his hard swallow was audible to her ears. “Yeah, so, that’s where I’m headed. It’ll be the longest I’ve been in the air in the helicopter, but—”
“You’re flying there?”
“Yeah. As long as he’s got enough clearance and flat land, Millard can drop the chopper.”
All of the sudden, Delaney understood one part of the puzzle that she had been missing in this strange conversation between them.
“That’s why you asked me if I would fly? You wanted to ask me to go there with you?”
Lucas’ gaze swept over her once more—studying the clothes she’d put on to spend her work day, and even the high pony keeping her natural waves out of her face. “I did say it was foolish. I told you that.”
Right.
She had work.
They didn’t really know one another.
Not well.
Would they even have a way out of the hunting camp once the helicopter was gone? She didn’t assume it, and the pilot, would stay.
“Well, I planned to fly you to Saint John for the weekend,” he muttered like an afterthought. “That’s why I asked the first time.”
Huh.
Except …
“Something changed,” she filled in.
Lucas nodded once.
“Will you tell me what it was?” Delaney asked.
“I will.”
“But—”
“Delaney, are you gonna drop me off this morning?” Bexley asked, making a reappearance in the kitchen once more. “It looks kind of cold outside.”
Fuck.
Her cousin could walk to uni—that’s how close campus was to their apartment. Her intrusion felt more like a check on the situation between Delaney and Lucas rather than an actual question about a ride in the Jeep.
Lucas, never acting like Bexley’s presence concerned him, told Delaney, “I will tell you. I’m just trying to make sense of it myself, right now. I gotta keep it together long enough for me to do that where nobody else can see. That’s all.”
His words said a lot.
His eyes said more.
There, he begged for somebody.
For something.
He looked empty and lost; a part of her, deep in her gut, recognized that bleeding heart he tried to hide on his sleeve and the wild stare ready to bolt. That was a dark place to be, stuck inside the hell of your own mind. Yes, she knew that look and the place he found himself. Because more often than not, those same demons looked back in her reflection every single day.
It was hard to run from pain that came from within.
That never stopped a human heart from trying, though.
“Delaney?” Bexley asked again, saying her name more forcefully the second time around.
She still didn’t answer.
Beyond the door, still watching her, Lucas asked, “Would you do something crazy—will you go with me?”
His soul screamed silently in that empty hallway.
Hers heard and answered back.