Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 138588 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138588 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Sawyer slipped off his jacket and hung it on one of the pegs by the door. “Sure. You can get your shit together in a couple of days. And what kind of job are you thinking? Since you’ve been in an MC all your life.”
It was stuffy in here. He took off the way too thin for this climate jacket Lydia had provided him with. A weariness struck him like a wave. “I’ll find something. I only need a couple of days here, and then I’ll be out of your hair. I have plans.”
Sawyer stood in front of him, hands in fists on his hips. “You got no place to live, no job, no skills and you’re going to…what?”
His tongue felt thick in his mouth, and his chest burned. It was like he’d held it all together with adrenaline and pure stubborn will, but now he was in this warm cabin and despite the surly attitude, he suddenly knew Sawyer wasn’t going to kick him out, wasn’t going to demand he kill his soul off piece by piece. Sawyer was going to be kind. It made it easy for the pain to creep back in. But also the hope. “I’m going to get a job and then I’m going to move to Bliss and find some other dumbass guy to be my best friend and we’re going to find a woman to share and I’m going to be fucking happy with kids and barbecues and I’ll get a truck so I can help my friends when they have to move. And my wife will yell at me to do the dishes.”
Sawyer put a hand on his shoulder. “Good, Wyatt. Sounds like a good life. Buddy, you’re bleeding through your shirt. Maybe we should move you to the sofa.”
“I’m okay.” But he wasn’t. He felt the world tip and heard Sawyer curse as he caught him and maneuvered him to the couch.
Where the dog decided she could lick him healthy.
“Yeah, I’m going to need someone to get Doc out to my place,” Sawyer was saying. “No, Luce, People Doc.” He paused. “Unless People Doc drank the damn eggnog, and then bring out the vet. How different could it be?”
It was different, he wanted to say, but it was getting dark.
And it was okay. It really was okay.
Wyatt let go and found a certain amount of peace in oblivion.
Chapter One
Eleven months later
Sabrina Leal loved Bliss with all her heart, but she swore she was never going to get used to walking out of her cabin in the morning and being greeted by a moose.
“Bobby and Will are running late again,” Del announced as she walked through the doors of the Bliss County School Grades Pre-K–12. She brushed a dusting of snow off her shoulders. Delilah was the twenty-five-year-old Stefan Talbot had allowed her to hire as a backup. Her mom was a nail tech at Polly’s Cut and Curl, and she’d thought she would move out of Bliss but had been thrilled when this job had come up. She was working on her master’s degree in preschool education, going to class online and driving into Alamosa to Adams State when she needed to.
Sabrina blessed the day Delilah Manning came into her life because she would never have been able to handle these kids alone. They were a joyous handful, but some of them were excellent at sneaking away. Charlie Hollister-Wright was an escape artist. “I’m sure there was an experiment they were involved in. Or they were talking to a girl. Well, Will might have been. Send them back here when they get in. I’ve got their lesson queued up on the main computer. Who’s in for the morning session with our babies?”
It was what she called the preschool class. It was by far the largest of the classes she had. Will and Bobby Farley were her only high school students, and honestly, they were so smart they only needed someone to direct their work and bring in tutors when they had trouble. This was where having a board of directors with seemingly endless pockets came into play. She’d brought in a professor from the University of Michigan’s math department to Zoom with the boys every Thursday while they were taking advanced calculus.
There was morning session and afternoon session, with lunch and a play break in between. Because the school was so small, the parents handled lunch every day. The “trios,” as Sabrina called them, handled those duties. There were more than romantic threesomes in Bliss. Friendships seemed to come in trios, too. Rachel Harper, Callie Hollister-Wright, and Jennifer Talbot handled Mondays and Wednesdays. Laura Kincaid-Briggs, Holly Burke, and Nell Flanders handled Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fridays were taken care of by Beth McNamara-O’Malley and her two friends, Hope Glen-Bennett and Gemma Wells—she didn’t need all those extra freaking names to remind her she’s married—brought in food on Fridays. Hope was pregnant with her first child, but while Gemma had declared her marriage a child-free zone, she was actually good with the ones who weren’t her own. She also declared it wasn’t fair to leave her out of the whole obvious friendship-bonding thing just because her womb was closed.