Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99921 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Fox sipped. “I would’ve taken you more for the wine type.”
“What does that mean? What exactly is the wine type?”
“The kind who wears flowy skirts to sheetrock.”
“It was one of the few things I had left that was clean. The washing machine is broken, just like everything else around here. I have a new one coming in a few days.” I sighed. “The real estate agent said the place needed some sprucing up. I was expecting painting and new carpet. I didn’t expect to be doing construction. Sorry I didn’t pack my steel-toe work boots and Carhartts.”
Fox squinted. “You have steel-toe work boots and Carhartts back home?”
“No.” I grinned. “But I could’ve bought them and packed them if I’d known.”
Fox chuckled into his lemonade.
The sun was almost gone now, but a lone golden streak sliced through the trees and marked a trail across the calm water of the lake. “It must be pretty incredible to live here and see this every night.”
A stretch of silence fell between us. “It’s been a while since I appreciated the view.”
“Really? How come?”
“Just a lot of memories.”
I assumed Fox meant memories with his fiancée. It was the second time today I’d dredged up his past. “I didn’t get a chance to say it earlier, but I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Fox caught my eyes but said nothing. I couldn’t tell if he was upset I’d brought up the subject or just wasn’t good at talking about it. I wasn’t even sure how recently he’d lost her. He picked up his glass and chugged the rest of the lemonade. I thought he was doing it to get the hell out of here. As he swallowed, I noticed the way his throat worked. The bob of his Adam’s apple made my insides feel tingly.
Great. The man is obviously struggling with the loss of his fiancée, and I’m ogling him as he does it.
When he finished, he held up his glass. “Still parched. Think I need another. You mind?”
“Not at all.”
He eyed my still-full drink and left it behind. When he came back out, he knocked back another long swig.
“So how do you know Evie’s father?” he asked.
“Evie?”
“Evie Dwyer,” he said. “Tom is her father. Renee is her stepmother and grew up in Laurel Lake.”
Oh! Evie. Fox’s fiancée.
“It’s sort of a long story.”
He shrugged. “Got nowhere to go at the moment.”
I spent the next ten minutes telling Fox the story I’d shared with Opal the other day—about my friend Chloe and her family hanging Christmas cards from strings, and how cards from the amazing people of Laurel Lake adorned my walls for most of the year.
Fox just stared at me.
“You think I’m a weirdo, don’t you?”
“Yep.”
I laughed. “You were supposed to say ‘Not at all. I think it’s a heartwarming story.’”
“I’m not much for lying.”
“Remind me not to ask you if I look like I gained a few pounds.”
Fox did a quick sweep over my body. His gaze lingered for a heartbeat or two at my cleavage before making its way up again. “No worries there. You look pretty good to me.”
Was hard-ass Fox giving me a compliment and, gasp, flirting?
No matter, I didn’t even get to fully enjoy the moment before he went and ruined it.
“So what made you take a slip-on shoe vacation?”
I was confused until I remembered I’d complained to him about my mother describing my stay in a mental hospital, where they’d taken my shoelaces when I arrived, as a vacation.
I probably should’ve been insulted that he was poking fun. But instead I found myself smiling. It was oddly refreshing that someone didn’t feel the need to tread lightly on the subject. People didn’t tease someone about things they felt bad about.
“Since you asked so nicely, I was struggling with depression and anxiety. It started with my work. I’m a principal scientist at Kolax and Hahm Pharmaceuticals. I develop new medicines for cancer treatments. One of the drugs I developed went into phase-three clinical trials, which is when it’s tested on a large number of people. AMERL7 was supposed to produce tumor regression in patients with brain cancer. It had showed a lot of promise during the earlier phases. But when we went wide, we discovered it had an interaction with the chicken pox vaccine. Fourteen children died because they participated in my trial.”
Fox’s face dropped. “Shit.”
“Yeah. It hit me hard, and I couldn’t move past it. I tried for a few months. By the time I checked myself in, I was spending twenty-three hours a day in bed. I was physically exhausted from depression.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There were other factors, too. Like I was supposed to get married in August.”
“Next month?”
I nodded.
“What happened?”
“My ex-fiancé, Noah, is an orthopedic-surgery resident. He works a ton of hours. I was feeling really lost after everything happened in the trial and started having trouble sleeping. One night, he was supposed to get off at midnight but didn’t come home. I texted him, and he said he’d just gotten out of an emergency surgery and had to stay because someone had called in sick. I decided to surprise him and deliver him dinner.”