Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 72856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“I was wondering the same thing,” Winter said. “But I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even ask certain things anymore. I swear they’re learning it from Sam’s kids. He lets them do anything.”
In exclamation to her point, she pointed out the window where a little girl with curly blonde hair was walking down the path towards Sam and Cheyenne’s house.
She was probably eight or so and dirty as hell.
She looked like she’d rolled around in the dirt…or maybe bathed in it.
The camo color of the clothes couldn’t hide that fact.
In one hand she had a small rifle, and the other she had four rabbits.
She walked straight up the front walk, up the stairs, and offered them to her mother.
Cheyenne squealed and jumped away, causing Sam to come running out.
He stopped when he saw what’d made Cheyenne scream, and then grinned, holding out his hand for a high five.
The girl took it, smearing blood on his hand as she did, and he laughed.
“That’s just fucking impressive if you ask me,” Tai said.
I thought so too.
My dad used to take me hunting all the time when we were younger, and I’d give absolutely anything to be able to do that with him again.
It looked to me like Sam was teaching his kids right.
Teaching a kid how to hunt and fish instilled certain values in a child. It taught them that not everything was just handed to them. That they had to work for what they wanted. And hunting and fishing certainly was work.
Some times were more fun than others, but it was work, nonetheless.
“That’s what I tell her,” Jack said. “But she’s adamant that they stay her babies for as long as she can keep them that way.”
I smiled sadly.
I missed my baby.
The way he smelled. The way his smile lit up my cloudy day.
“We were going to order Chinese…is that okay with you?” Winter asked, changing the subject.
I blinked, looking up.
They were all staring at me with varying degrees or worry.
“I’m not a big fan of Chinese,” I said. “But I’ll eat it.”
Jack and Tai grunted.
“What?” I asked.
Winter sighed.
“They don’t like Chinese either,” Winter explained. “I can’t even get my partner at the station to eat it with me. You were my only hope.”
I laughed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m more of a fried chicken and pizza girl, myself.”
Winter sighed.
“Pizza it is.”
An hour and a half later, I was drunk off my ass from the wine that Tai, Jack and Winter kept pouring me. And I was full...really full.
So full that I’d had to unbutton the first button on my skirt.
“So when did you decide that you wanted to be a nurse?” Winter asked.
I didn’t take my eyes off of Jack and Tai as they spoke animatedly outside.
But I answered.
“I was in high school when I saw my first wreck,” I said. “I was parked in a spot at the Sonic, facing the road, when a SUV tried to hit his breaks and couldn’t get them to engage. The SUV went around all the parked cars and plowed straight into an intersection, striking four vehicles.
“I was out of my car and standing on the roadside before I’d even realized I’d done so,” I explained. “I helped a mother get her baby out of the car, still in her car seat, and turned to watch the man that caused the whole wreck laying in the grass up by my car.”
“Then why not a medic?” She asked.
I shook my head.
“I started to go that route after I graduated…but then I realized that the pay was nowhere near as good, even though a paramedic does more,” I told her.
“Ahhh,” she said. “Yes, that’s true. Paramedics do just as much work as nurses do…have to know quite a few more things and know how to deal with spur of the moment complications…and they get paid less. I’m not saying that a nurse’s job isn’t worth the pay…just that we’re worth more than we’re getting paid.”
I agreed.
My mind, however, wandered back to Tai and the covert glances he kept giving Jack throughout the meal.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” I asked in worry.
I knew what they were talking about.
Tai had heard my phone discussion with the witch from Jenner’s Heating and Air.
She’d been a right bitch, so it wasn’t hard to see that Tai would try to do something about it.
“I don’t know. Jack got a text message before you arrived about something, but I was busy with the kids and didn’t notice that he was on the computer until I saw him looking into a few things on an AC company,” Winter shrugged.
I sighed.
“That was what I was afraid of,” I admitted.
Winter blinked and turned to survey me.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
I laid it all out for her, then told her that Tai had walked in on the discussion without me being aware that he was there.