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)
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“And no matter how much I think about it or talk about it, bottom line, I’ll never understand how one person can do that to another. Not if they share a child. Not ever. So it’ll be a waste of time and effort and emotion to try. I’ll never come to terms with how I lost her. Because the bottom line is, she’s gone. I’ve lost her. I’ll miss her until I die. So it’s just about time, and using it to learn how to live with it.”
“Yeah,” he grunted again.
“So stop worrying about me. I’m okay.”
“Okay, princess,” he murmured, his voice gruff.
I tipped my head back to look up at him, and no evasiveness, he looked right at me with red rimming his beautiful, silvery eyes. He wasn’t crying, as such, but he was fighting it, probably so he could be strong for me (as well as maintain his macho-man badassness).
And I was in denial if I didn’t admit to myself, I was fighting falling in love with him.
That didn’t scare me.
I was okay with it, even if what we had lasted just a week.
Because me, and Mom, and Trevor, and Lincoln, Roosevelt and Sarah Whitaker, and people like us, never knew how long we had, and way back when Riggs and I first started to become the us we were now, Riggs was right.
The best way to fuck the ones who fuck you was to get as much out of life as you can, be as happy as you can, and do the things you enjoy as much as you can.
So I was going to do that, now and forever.
Starting with Riggs.
“You said something about martinis?” I prompted.
For a second, he looked blank with surprise.
Then his lips twitched.
After that, he smiled.
THIRTY
Ice Cold
Nadia
I woke when the bed shook mightily.
It took a beat for me to realize it was because Riggs had left it in a hurry.
I knew this because it was really dark since Riggs let the shades down, but even so, his even darker shadow was beside the bed and moving like he was putting on his jeans.
It was only then I heard the scratching on the window.
I sat up, and like he had the vision of a cat, his finger was on my lips as I opened my mouth to speak.
“Hush, princess. And put clothes on,” he ordered quietly.
I was naked, considering, mid-martini, we got busy again, and since we had emotion to work out, that busy was busy.
Now I started to do what he said, but we both froze when the scratching at the window by the reading nook stopped, but it started almost immediately at the window on the bed side, down by the bathroom.
That was new.
And even creepier.
Were there two of them?
There had to be. No other explanation. No one could make it around the cabin that quickly.
Riggs grabbed my phone off the charger, found my wrist then slapped it in my palm, wrapping my fingers around it. Then he moved away only to come back and sit on the edge of the bed to put his boots on.
I was trying to figure out if I should call the sheriff’s office first, or get dressed, when the scratching at the window by the bathroom became the same by the living room.
Oh shit.
Were there three? Or had the first one moved around?
I slid out of bed, feeling for clothes with my toes, and ran into my dress.
I bent and snatched it up.
Riggs let out a low whistle, and I looked his way.
“Call. Whisper,” he commanded in his own whisper.
Then I stood, fixed with panic as his shadow moved to the storage closet, he went in it and came out of it incredibly quick.
The panic part came when he headed down the back hall.
He’d reinstalled it, so the door opened without a sound, but still, I knew he was opening it.
Shit!
Frantically, I searched for my clothes, ran into my panties, tugged them on, found my bra on the back of the armchair in the living room (Riggs really wanted rid of that, it seemed, because he’d thrown it a long way). I struggled into it, then I went back to my dress I’d tossed on the bed. I wasted no time pulling it over my head.
After that, I sank to my bottom beside the bed, yanked the quilt over my head (just in case they could see inside somehow, I didn’t want them to see my screen light up), and I activated the phone.
I went to favorites, hit the number and put it to my ear.
I jumped when I heard a thud against the outside wall by the kitchen.
“Fret County Sheriff’s Office,” a man answered.
“Hi. This is Nadia Antonov,” I whispered. “Out at the Weaver Cabin on County Road Thirty. I have trespassers scratching at my windows. I’m with Doc”—another thud, Lord—“Riggs, and he’s gone out to, I don’t know, deal with them.”