Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“What do you want?” She’s irritated now.
“I’m not sure if you heard, but we bought that old mining town down the highway between Bishop and Disciple.”
“Yeah, I heard. Amon told Rosie and—”
“Rosie told everyone.” She and I both laugh. “Some things never change.”
“So… why are you calling again? And how did you get this number? It’s the landline.”
“It’s my number, Lowyn.”
“Oh.” She huffs a little. “Right. I guess I never turned the phone off.” There’s a pause here as she works out the details. “Wow. I’m a really bad bookkeeper. How have I been paying this bill all these years and never knew it?”
I bypass her rhetorical question and skip straight to my own explanation. “I don’t have your cell number. And I wanted to tell you that there’s all kinds of fuckin’ retro shit up in these houses.”
“Really?”
“Is that excitement I detect?”
“Obviously, I am in love with the retro shit.”
“Obviously. Well, I was just wonderin’ if you’d like to come up and take what you want.”
“Take what I want?”
“Help yourself to whatever’s here.”
“Don’t you want it?”
“It’s crap, Lowyn.”
“It’s treasure, Collin.”
I really like it when she says my name. I don’t know why, but I always have and that has not changed. “Our opinions diverge here. It’s yours, if you want any of it. And I really am sorry for jumpin’ down your throat this morning. Being home is… weird.”
“Especially with your family gone. It’s got to be a shock.”
There’s a silence after she says this. It wasn’t a shock. She has no idea what kind of conversations I had with my daddy since I left. It wasn’t a shock.
“It was, I guess.” I don’t like liars and I don’t like to lie, but I will do it on occasion to spare a sadness. Mine, in this case. Not hers.
She lets out a breath. “Well, thank you. And to repay you for this kindness… you can eat at the inn.”
I laugh again. And this time, it feels good too. “You are the most generous woman I have ever met.”
“And you’re the most…” I wait for it, dying for it. “The most… talented… wordsmith.”
I just shake my head.
“Seriously. I had forgotten how you speak.”
“How do I speak?”
“You choose your words so carefully. And you say things in the most interesting way.”
“Do I now?”
“‘Our opinions diverge here.’” She says this in a low tone, imitating me, but not mocking me. “That’s just so… good.”
“Good?”
“Yeah. I’ve missed it.”
She doesn’t say, ‘I’ve missed you.’ But I know that’s what she means. ’Cept she’s not talking about this me. She’s talking about the old me. The good one.
“I’ve missed you too.” And that’s not really what I mean, either. What I’m saying is that I’ve missed us.
“The rumble and the glory.”
“What?”
“The sermon that plays on the speakers? It always reminded me of you. Maybe you don’t remember it.”
I do. How could I forget that? They were my daddy’s words. And his daddy’s before him. And his daddy’s before him. When you look upon the hills, the sun shining on the peaks, and you hear the rumble in the distance, don’t you ever forget that behind it comes the glory.
Lowyn huffs a little. “I guess I know where you get it from.”
“Get what from?”
“That wordsmithing you do.”
I smile. “You come up any time you want, Lowyn McBride. I’ll be here.” And then I end the call and this time, I really do go to sleep.
Ididn’t really have time to assess the hotness factor when I kicked Collin out of my house this morning, but I swear, when I saw him in that hedge maze, I about lost my breath. And I had already been looking at him on the video on Bryn’s phone for several minutes before he caught me.
Not that anything I was doing was illegal. Of course I’m gonna look at the video. I cannot remember what I did.
Well, let’s just say that thanks to that video, my memory has been jogged. I was sitting at the bar alone, just doing my thing. Getting drunk. And yes, I was looking for a man to take home.
This part isn’t on the video because probably no one was paying attention to me until much later. But I do recall the moment I first saw Collin Creed walk through the bar door. Except I didn’t know it was Collin. I didn’t even have an inkling. Why would I? I haven’t seen him in nearly twelve years. Haven’t even thought about him really.
And I know, I know, I know that the bedroom doesn’t look good on my part. Might make me appear dejected. Or jaded. Or possibly even unhinged. But I really haven’t been pining over Collin Creed since high school. That’s just not how it went.
And my proof, should anyone confront me on this point, is that I didn’t even recognize him. All I saw was a very handsome man with a chiseled—yet slightly scruffy—face, mesmerizing hazel eyes, and that hair that has never been able to decide if it was blond or brown. He was wearing a leather jacket, jeans that hugged those thighs of his, and a t-shirt that said… well… something. I don’t recall the t-shirt slogan.