Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 34426 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34426 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
“What?” Ricky’s face turned green. “No. You can’t do that. I didn’t kill anyone.”
Moose shrugged. “Maybe not, but you did hand your sister over to a sadistic asshole who’d have raped her repeatedly if you weren’t such a bad shot.” He pointed to his temple again. “Lucky for me, you are, and I was able to rescue her.”
“Fuck you. I didn’t kill anyone. I’ll tell them all it was you.”
“Trust me, with the evidence at the scene…” Oscar laughed. “This is an open-and-shut case, no matter what you say.”
Moose looked at his new friend. “You got this from here?”
“Sure do, man. Pleasure doing business with you.” They shook, and Moose left to the tune of a screaming Ricky, much as Daisy had moments before.
He found her sitting out front on the curb. The sun had set long ago, but the parking lot was well-lit and empty except for them.
“Hey, baby,” he said as he sat next to her.
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Hey. Is he, uh… did you…”
“I did not. We’re setting it up to look like he murdered Buster. He’ll go to jail for the rest of his life.”
He felt her nod against his shoulder.
“You okay with that?”
“Yes,” she said, and he didn’t push. There would be time to dig deeper later. One thing had been driving him crazy since they left Buster’s house. “What did you say to Buster?”
“Hmm?”
“At the house. You crouched by him and said something.”
“Oh.” She straightened off his shoulder. “Before you got there when he touched me, I told him I was going to kill him. So after you shot him, I told him I’d been wrong. I wasn’t the one to kill him, but I was going watch him die.”
He chuckled, even as his mind stuck on the part where she said Buster touched her. It’d take him a bit to move past that part of the story.
“Moose, I wanna tell you something,” she rushed to say as she turned to him and grabbed his hands. “This might sound crazy, and it might be too fast, but I don’t care.”
“I love you,” he said.
She blinked. “What?”
“I said… I love you, Daisy. Yes, it’s very fast. And yes, it’s crazy. But I fucking love you, and I want to be with you.”
“You love me?” she whispered. “I love you too. I thought you were going to tell me I was insane. I was afraid I’d run you off.”
He drew her close and kissed her. “There’s not a damn thing that could run me off.”
“This is amazing.” She beamed and pressed a hand over her heart which was probably racing as fast as his. “But we have so much to figure out.”
“We do, but how about we head to the motel and spend the next three days making each other come before we dive into the details?”
“That sounds perfect.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
Almost as amazing as the thought of them spending the rest of their lives together.
EPILOGUE
DAISY FLOATED THROUGH the conference center on a cloud of excitement and elation. Attending an event like this was a dream come true—that she found a man who looked like he walked off the cover of her favorite novel and was willing to attend at her side.
Well, she couldn’t say that was a dream come true because she’d never allowed herself a dream so wild. And yet there she was, turning heads everywhere she went as anyone attending assumed her ol’ man was a cover model.
The thought had her laughing. Moose would make a hot but terrible model, and all the attention would give him hives.
“Babe?”
“Yeah?” She grinned at him with the same beaming smile that hadn’t left her face since they arrived.
“Why’s everyone fucking staring at me?”
She gave him the most innocent grin she could muster. “I hadn’t noticed. What do you mean?”
His eyes narrowed. “Liar. What gives?”
“You look like you belong on the cover of half these books,” she said as she slipped her hand into his.
“Get outta here.” He lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles, and she swore she heard three women sigh.
“I’m serious,” she said, giggling. “Look…” She used her free hand to dig around in the tote bag full of books. The man was a saint for indulging her paperback addiction. “See?” She held up a book with a muscular, tattooed biker who could have been Moose’s brother. “This one too.” She fished out another. “And this one.”
Moose rolled his eyes. “Okay, I get it.”
“I’m afraid if I wander away from you, you’ll be swarmed by a mob of insatiable readers.”
He pulled her to him and wound his arm around her shoulders. “Then I guess you better stick real close.” She lifted her face for a kiss which he granted.
They spent the next few hours jumping from table to table. After the fifth time, she checked in with Moose and told him they could leave whenever he wanted. He pulled her off to the side, kissed her senselessly, and set her straight.