Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
I smiled and then instantly winced because it hurt. I’d slapped an ice pack on my cheek and another over my nose after I’d stopped seeing stars—and after I’d been able to finally catch my breath because, let me tell you, falling off a ladder hurt. But the ice hadn’t done much other than maybe keep the swelling down. Something was better than nothing.
“Me?” I asked, trying to play dumb, as I locked the shop door behind me. We still had fifteen minutes left before opening.
She blinked, set down the money she’d been counting into the register, and asked, almost cryptically, “It looks like you got punched.”
“I didn’t. I fell off a ladder and had a bat house fall on me.”
“You fell off a ladder?”
“And dropped a bat house on my face.”
She winced. “What were you doing putting up a bat house?” she gasped.
It had taken me days, at least five hours of research, and a whole lot of staring at the Rhodes’s house and property to set up a plan for battling the damn bats. Then my shipment had gotten delayed before finally arriving.
The problem was, I had never considered myself to be afraid of heights, but . . . the second I’d climbed up on a ladder leaning against a tree that I’d walked by countless times, I realized why I had felt that way.
I’d never been on anything taller than a kitchen island counter.
Because reality was, as soon as I’d been about three feet off the ground, my knees started shaking and I began to feel kind of ill.
And no amount of telling myself to buck up or reminding myself the worst that would happen would be that I’d break an arm did . . . anything.
I’d started sweating, and my knees shook even worse.
And for what I needed, I had to go as high up as possible—twelve to twenty feet, according to the instructions.
But all it took was the memory of the bat flying over my defenseless head while I slept . . . and the reality that I hadn’t actually slept more than thirty minutes on and off since Mr. Rhodes had saved me because I kept waking up paranoid, to get my ass up that A-frame ladder even though I was shaking so bad it jiggled with me, making it worse.
But it was either climbing up a tree close to the Rhodes’s property—and honestly tucked a little away because I hoped he wouldn’t see it because I had a feeling he might complain about it—or having to pull out the even bigger ladder from around the side of the main house and having to go even higher to find where the hell the bat was coming in from.
I was going to go with option A because I would more than likely pass out and break my neck if I fell off the bigger ladder.
But I’d still screwed it up.
And fallen off, screeching like a fucking hyena, nearly blacking out, and had something that weighed less than three pounds but felt like fifty fall on my damn face while I’d gasped to catch my breath.
My back still hurt.
And now I was at work, with more than a little bit of makeup on, and having Clara stare at me in horror.
“There’s been a bat flying around, and I read that a bat house would hopefully attract it so it wouldn’t keep flying into the house,” I explained, going around the counter and hiding my bag in one of the drawers.
When I stood up straight, she touched my chin and lifted it up, brown eyes focused on my cheek. “Want me to tell you the good news or the bad news first?”
“The bad.”
“We’ve had problems with them at Dad’s,” she started to explain, wincing at whatever she saw. “But you have to plug up where they’re coming in from first, then put the house up.”
Son of a bitch.
“Did you put attractant in there?”
“What’s that?”
“You need to put some in there to get them to start using it.”
I frowned, forgetting I couldn’t do that. “I didn’t read that online.”
“You need it. We might still have some. I’ll check.” She paused. “How did you fall off?”
“This hawk swooped me, and I freaked out and fell off right when I was trying to nail the house up.”
She glanced down before I could make a fist, and she saw the bruise on my hand too.
“I’ve never used a hammer before.”
I had one of the nicest friends in the world because she didn’t laugh. “You’re better off using a drill.”
“A drill?”
“Yeah, with wood screws. It’ll hold up longer.”
I sighed. “Shit.”
Even her nod was sympathetic. “I’m sure you tried your best.”
“More like tried my best to bust my ass.”
That got her to laugh. “Want me to come over and help?” she offered. “Why didn’t Rhodes do it for you?”