Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“Yeah. I’m gonna see if she will let me treat it once she’s dressed and fed.”
“There’s a Chinese and an Italian place nearby. And one of those chain breakfast places that have a little bit of everything. Did you talk to Slash?”
“Yeah. He wants an update once we know if she wants to go to the police or not.”
Raff exhaled hard at that, glancing over to the bathroom door. “As much as I want those fucks locked up, I think that’s too good for what they did.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But we have to leave it up to her. She’s had enough choices taken from her.”
“If she doesn’t want to go to the cops, though?” he asked.
“Slash said, if she wants, she can come back with us to get back on her feet. Thought Morgaine might be helpful,” I added.
“I can see that. But there’s a lot of men at the clubhouse,” he said.
“Yeah,” I agreed, thinking of the newer prospects who’d joined up recently. Coach, Rook, and Colter. Hell, I didn’t even know if they’d added anyone else since then. I guess we would see in a few days.
“Never did a road trip with a girl before,” Raff said as I got up to rifle through the bags, separating things, then hanging what I thought she might need off of the door handle, then knocking to tell her that.
“I don’t think she’s going to want to be seeing the sights much,” I warned him. “Figure she’s going to mostly sleep and hang out in the motel rooms.”
“Don’t blame her. Men must be scary as fuck now.”
“Yeah.”
“She trusts you, though.”
“I broke her out of there,” I told him, shrugging.
“Figure it might be more than that,” he said, but shut up when the door suddenly cracked open.
An arm moved out, the skin pink from the hot water, steam wafting into the bedroom as she got the bags off the handle and pulled them inside with her.
She was almost another hour after that, likely brushing her teeth, slathering on lotion and lip balm, and working the tangles out of her hair.
When she emerged, her entire frail body was wrapped up in a pair of roomy black sweatpants and a loose cream sweater.
Her hair, darkened almost to auburn when wet, was pulled into a French braid down her back.
“Thanks for the clothes,” she said, looking toward Raff, but not making eye-contact.
“Got some other goodies on your bed,” he said, waving toward it.
Then we watched as she went to the bags, carefully pulling out each item. Then, almost immediately, slipping into them. The fluffy socks, the oversized sweater, even the blanket, which she pulled around herself like a robe.
“Thank you,” she said, sniffling hard, and we both realized with no small amount of discomfort that she had tears in her eyes as she climbed on the bed, hugging the squishy stuffed tortoiseshell kitten to her chest.
“Told you I loved shopping,” Raff said, brushing off the gesture. “Now, we need to talk about food,” he said, sitting on the foot of my bed. “I saw a Chinese place, an Italian place, and a breakfast place. But the kind that has just about everything. Raff and I can’t decide what we want,” he lied. “So you’re gonna have to help us out.”
“Breakfast,” she said immediately, gray eyes going wide at the idea. “Definitely.”
“Breakfast it is. I will bring up the menu on my phone, and you can add shit to the cart,” he said, working on that as Vienna rubbed her hand absentmindedly over the stuffed kitten, likely marveling at something soft. After months in a cold, hard shed. No bed, blankets, no nothing but the walls and floor and the chain around her ankle.
“While he goes and picks the food up,” I said as she added things to the cart, doing so with the wild abandon of a woman who was, quite literally, starved, “do you think I can take a look at your ankle? Maybe treat it?” I asked.
“Oh, um, okay,” she said, nodding as she looked over at me.
“Get me whatever,” I told Raff, who nodded, then added a few things to the cart himself.
“I’m gonna go pick this up, and maybe some snacks too, for the night,” he said, in a hurry to leave us alone to talk.
“He’s nice,” she said.
“He’s got better taste in women’s clothes than I do,” I said, getting a ghost of a smile out of her as I came toward her bed with the first aid kit. “Can I?” I asked, waving toward her covered ankle.
She gave me a tight nod, and I felt like I was doing everything wrong as she stiffened while I removed her sock, then pushed up her pant leg.
It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t look as bad now that she’d managed to wash all the dirt out of it. It was raw in places, but the majority of the discoloration looked to be from old, healed scars from the shackle.