Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
And now she was saying in flagrante delicto.
This woman.
“We were post-coital, not post-in flagrante delicto,” he disputed. “Courtney’s not taken.”
Her eyes moved over his face in a way he both liked and made him feel awkward.
“Your correction is noted, though it’s more fun to say in flagrante delicto. And just to say, not a lot of people know the distinction between those two,” she said, her voice softer than its normal soft.
“You forget, I’m a genius,” he joked. “And I might like a good time, or to mellow out with some good weed, and I work with my hands, but I also know how to read.”
She shifted and said swiftly, “I didn’t mean to offen—”
“You didn’t, Nadia. I’m teasing you.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“And your non-apology apology is accepted,” he continued teasing.
She rolled her eyes, looked away, and finally took a sip of her wine.
He smiled into his glass before he took one from his.
“You can run through my yard,” she told the lake.
“Obliged,” he replied.
“And if you give me a heads-up you’re going to have people over and want to let loose, maybe I can, I don’t know, check into a spa somewhere.”
“Or you could come and join us,” he offered a different option.
She made a face at him.
He wanted to find it funny, but that offended him.
“I hope you get from tonight I’m good people, and so are my friends.”
“You listen to Tool.”
Oh yeah.
He was offended.
“I don’t,” he shot back. “I lost control of the playlist somewhere along the way.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” she mumbled, attention back to the lake.
“They’re not my favorite, but what’s wrong with Tool?”
She turned back to him. “I listen to Taylor Swift. And Lizzo. And Sara Bareilles. Pink. Florence and the Machine. Miley Cyrus. Lady Gaga. Adele.”
He held his hand in front of her face. “Stop.”
She smiled. “I think you’re understanding me.”
Yeah, he was, and it was good to know she wasn’t dogging him, she just wasn’t a good-time girl.
At least, not the kind he was used to.
“I think if I let you take over the playlist, my friends would drown us both in the lake.”
At that, he got her sweet laughter.
But then she pulled both shoulders forward and said, “I’ve never been much of a partier. But if you are, I don’t want to be a wet blanket. Obviously, I don’t want to be checking into spas once a week, something it seems won’t happen if you work out of town a lot. But on an occasion, I can figure something out.”
“Or seriously, you can join us.”
“Well, for now,” she looked again to the lake, “I need to do…other things.”
He agreed.
He just didn’t think those other things should be diving deeper into her head. He knew what a shitshow that could be. He’d lived it a long, fucking time.
And she needed that wisdom.
“I figured out a while ago that the best way to fuck him was to get as much out of life as I can, be as happy as I can, do the things I enjoy as much as I can, without my dad casting a pall over it, which is what the asshole would want.” He bumped her thigh with his. “Just to say, you should think on that.”
She was watching him closely when she replied, “It’s good advice, Riggs, so I will.”
“Right,” he replied, turning his own attention to the lake because that look on her face made him want to kiss her, and that was not where this was going.
“And what I have to just say is you’re not getting out of explaining why no one has been in this cabin for three years.”
It wasn’t three.
For all intents and purposes, it was fifteen.
And the same thing could be said for his house, but he wasn’t going to tell her that either.
“Riggs?” she called.
Goddamn it.
“It’s bullshit,” he said.
“What’s bullshit?” she asked.
He sucked in breath through his nose and looked back to her.
“Do you know who Roosevelt Whitaker is?”
Her brows knit. “Why is that name familiar?”
“Because he’s half of the identical twin brother team of thriller writers known as Roosevelt Lincoln. The second half was Lincoln Whitaker.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I’ve heard of them.”
“You would. They were John Grisham, Dan Brown, Tom Clancy big. Seriously successful. Three movies were made of the first three books in their flagship series before shit went south.”
Her interest was piqued, and she showed that to him with more than her question of, “What was the shit that went south?”
“Roosevelt lived here, year-round,” he said, swinging out his glass of wine to indicate the cabin.
“Really?” she asked, her surprise as evident as her interest.
“Yup.”
“It’s amazing, but it doesn’t seem very ‘abode of a big-time author.’”
“True. But he was known as kind of a recluse. Lincoln Whitaker was the opposite. Friendly guy. Social. Everyone knew him even if he lived in Seattle. He’d come out here six months of the year to research and write with his brother. Eventually, he got married to a woman named Sarah, and they had kids. They bought a patch of land from Roosevelt and built my house.”