Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
“How ’bout doin’ that now, getting it out of the way, and we’ll go out and spend some time with Maddy so you got that before she has to go away.”
This was a good plan, so I moved carefully to reach for my phone without losing much contact with him.
I then hit go on her number.
She answered probably half a second before it went to voicemail.
“Yes?”
“Hi, Annie. It’s Di again.”
“Hello, dear.”
“Listen, I’m sorry. I need to take tomorrow off too.”
“You’re not here?”
See what I mean?
“Yeah. Remember? I called you this morning asking for a personal day.”
“Yes, yes. I forgot,” she mumbled.
“So is it okay if I take tomorrow off? I’ll explain when I come into the office on Wednesday.”
“Of course, Di. Whatever you need. Wait. Where are you with the Galligan’s painting?”
“Still working on it. But I’ll have it done by the time you promised it to them.”
“And the Harris’s icon?”
“That’s up next.”
“Fine then,” she said distractedly. “See you Wednesday.”
And then she proved how distracted she was by hanging up on me so she could get on with whatever she was doing.
I tossed my phone aside and announced, “I’m good at work.”
“All right. So are you good to go out there and get some time in with Maddy before she goes?”
I was, absolutely, and I wasn’t, also absolutely, but the latter bit was only because we’d have that time knowing she was going.
“Let’s go out.”
Hugger cupped the back of my head so he could bring it down to his for a bristly lip brush and then he rolled us both out of bed.
“You think Emmylou will make me a man sandwich?” he asked as we walked hand in hand to the door. “I didn’t get lunch.”
“I think Emmylou would craft an entire Thanksgiving dinner in half an hour if one of the men who looked after her girl asked for it.”
His deep voice held humor when he agreed, “I think you’re right.”
He opened the door and the scent of sugary goodness wafted down the hall.
“See?” I asked Hugger upon being assaulted by that smell.
He smiled down at me.
Damn, but he had a great smile.
We hit the living room to see Big Petey gabbing with Elias in the living room, and Emmylou and Madison in my kitchen, making cookies.
And sandwiches.
“Pete says you two didn’t have lunch, Hugger,” Emmylou called. “Dinner is only a couple of hours away, but I’m making you boys something to tide you over.”
“Obliged,” Hugger replied on a beard twitch.
“What kind of cookies are those?” I asked.
“Mama’s famous almond cookies,” Maddy answered.
“Oh my God, I love almond,” I told Emmylou.
“I aim to please,” Emmylou murmured as she carted two plates weighed down by massive sandwiches and such big piles of chips they covered the sandwiches, which I suspected would “tide over” Hugger and Big Petey quite nicely.
Hugger sat with Pete and Elias in the living room to eat his sandwich.
I went to the kitchen to help with cookies.
“What’s a yurt?” Emmylou asked Jagger.
Bit of news: Jagger was, indeed, as handsome as his older brother. A little less intense, but no less good-looking.
Roscoe was also cute, if bikers could be overtly cute, though Roscoe proved they could, and he wore big, black-framed Buddy Holly glasses, which made him cuter.
We were all sitting around the dinner table, munching on cookies after scarfing down Emmylou’s insanely good beef and noodles.
I needed to get her recipes before she left.
“It’s a round tent that doesn’t have a center support,” Jagger told Emmylou. “And I only know that because my wife has an adventurous spirit. She had a hankering to stay in a yurt. I got her to one and I can’t say it sucked.”
“Where all have you been?” Elias asked.
“Better to ask where they haven’t,” Big Petey butted in. “The weather’s good, they’re off somewhere all the time.”
“Only young once,” Emmylou stated. “Get the wanderlust out of you, hunker down and create your family.”
“Think when we have ’em, Arch is gonna strap our kids to her and me and get us on the road anyway, Miss Emmylou,” Jagger replied.
“To each their own,” Emmylou stated. “Children need stability, but that comes in the form of their parents, and the rest doesn’t matter.”
I looked to Maddy to see how she was dealing with all of this.
She was biting into a cookie with a little smile on her face aimed at her mother.
There it was, more healing.
She had a long row to hoe, but at least now she had the people she needed around her to do it.
Eight pushed his chair back.
“Best get goin’,” he declared.
The rest of the boys followed suit, so we all got up.
There were handshakes, claps on the back, murmurs of farewell, lower murmurs of gratitude from the two older O’Keefes, and I got hugs too, particularly long ones from Eight and Muzzle.