Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Instead, the guy chose to be a dick.
Guys like them were exactly the reason that hydrilla had taken over waterways all over Texas. Their refusal to clean off their vessels when they moved to a different area of the lake to fish—or even a different lake itself—transported it to places where it hadn’t previously been.
Once the two men had passed by in their shitty truck with their even shittier boat, I pulled out my phone and placed a call.
***
Tyler
I shook hands with the game warden for our small town. “Nice to see you again, Theo. How’s life treating you?”
Theo, also known as Theodore Oliver IV, was the game warden for about four surrounding counties. I’d known him since we’d started shooting at the same range in Longview right around the time that I’d graduated from police academy.
He’d been air force, I’d been marines.
He’d been a game warden, I’d been a police officer.
He’d been shooting a Glock, I’d been shooting a 1911.
We were like fire and water, but we got along just fine.
It was funny, but Theo reminded me of the male version of Reagan. Prickly, quiet, slow to warm to you and uncaring of your feelings or whether he was trespassing on your property or not.
Kind of like now, he was sitting in my seat at my desk, feet propped up, eating what I suspected was one of my donuts.
And they weren’t the crap donuts you got from a donut shop, either. They were the healthy ones that I kept in my desk—my locked desk.
Let’s not forget that my office door had also been locked, so there was that.
“It’s treating me pretty good,” Theo said, answering my question. “Did you know these donuts taste like shit?”
I grinned. “They’re gluten-free keto-friendly donuts with so much protein in them your farts will stink for a week.”
Theo took another bite, scrutinizing it more carefully this time. “How many carbs do they have?”
“About five per donut,” I answered, remembering the label that I’d examined just yesterday. “What are you doing here?”
I set my lunch down on the desk—I’d gone to retrieve it from the break room and had only been gone for a whole five minutes at most—and looked at Theo.
He looked tired.
“I’m here because I have about an hour break before I’m supposed to be at the lake in Clinton and I want to sit down and eat and feel like a normal person instead of eating on the fuckin’ run,” he answered. “I’m so fuckin’ tired.”
I grinned. “You did sign up for this…”
He flipped me off.
I grinned and took a seat. “Why are you working so late, anyway?”
He sighed. “I’ve been working with the game warden that’s stationed in Uncertain. Apple Drew. He’s covering about twice his normal workload, too, because we’re short-staffed. The two men that were doing other sections next to us up and left after an incident. We got a couple coming from the academy, but until they’ve finished there, which isn’t for about another month, it’s just us two covering way too much land. Lucky we’re not in the middle of a season.”
That was true.
It could be a lot worse.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re sitting at my desk, eating my donut,” I pointed out as I took a seat opposite of where he was currently warming my chair. “After also taking my parking spot outside.”
Theo grinned, then let his feet drop off the corner of my desk, narrowly missing knocking off the cup of pencils and pens. “I have a few things I wanted to go over with you and I knew that goody-two-shoes little girl that sits outside would call you the moment she saw me pull into your spot.”
I grinned. “Katy. She’s new.”
“Katy?” he asked, sounding like he was letting the name roll around on his tongue. “Sounds delicious.”
“Katy, also known as Katerina. She’s a ball buster, though. Oh, and she has a man—I think. He’s in the navy. A SEAL, I believe. She’s new, though. So, don’t fuck that up. I want to keep her. She’s terribly efficient,” I admonished Theo.
He held up his hands as if he was going to acquiesce. Fat chance.
I knew Theo.
He wasn’t Rome to me or anything, but I felt like I had a fairly good grasp on the man. I knew when his interest was piqued and Katy had done that.
I wonder what she’d said to him.
“Well, let’s just say that…” his voice fell off as he sighed and reached for the phone. “Hey, darlin’. What’s shakin’, Reagan?”
Reagan.
I narrowed my eyes.
There was no way in hell that this was a coincidence.
“Is it now?” he asked, his eyes lighting up with something that Reagan had said on the phone to him. “What’s the make of the truck?” He paused. “Okay. I’ll go do that now. I have a little help, anyway. Don’t worry your pretty little head.”