Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 73537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Amethyst didn’t seem as convinced. She leaned closer to the bread and inhaled deeply. “Dammit, I think smelling it made me gain a pound. Fuck, that must taste like heaven. Take a bite and let me watch you eat it.”
Was she serious right now? I stared at her as she watched me with envy and hope in her eyes.
“Get your bottle of water and a stick of celery out of the fridge and go. You’re freaking the girl out,” Nina scolded her.
Amethyst sighed and gave my bread one last longing look before walking past me and into the kitchen. “Fine. But I want the details on why Micah brought her here. Nothing interesting has gone on here in months. It’s getting boring.”
Nina rolled her eyes heavenward, then leaned a narrow hip against the counter and picked up a mug to take a sip. “How long have you and Pepper been friends?” she asked me.
The memory of the day I had met Pepper brought a smile to my lips. She’d been a force to be reckoned with in the second grade, and I’d been the new girl in class, afraid of my own shadow.
“Since the first day of second grade,” I replied. “Daddy got a job at a factory right outside of Miami because Momma wanted him home more. He’d been gone all the time before, working as a trucker.”
“Where did you live originally?” she asked me.
“Biloxi, Mississippi. It’s where my momma was born, and she threatens to move back all the time. But I ain’t going, and she knows that. So, she stays in Stuart to be close to me. Having an only child made her a touch overprotective.” I didn’t add any more of my details about that. The truth was much darker.
“I’d think you would have dropped that thick accent of yours by now,” Amethyst said. “I would have never guessed you’d lived around here since you were in second grade. You sound like you’re fresh out of Mississippi.”
Nina scowled. “Didn’t I send you on your way?”
She pressed her plump lips into a pout, then strutted toward the door. I was completely envious of her legs. They were so long. Why had God decided that I was to be a stump? He did unfair things like that all the time. Made me question wasting all my words, praying to him. It sounded like a pointless ritual. He was gonna do what he wanted anyway. I doubted me begging him otherwise would change a dang thing.
“Oh! Speak of the devil,” Amethyst said in a singsong voice.
I glanced back at her to see Micah walking through the red door.
His eyes landed on mine, and he smirked. “Take that bread with you, Tink, and come with me. I got some questions I need answered before I call my sister.”
“Tink? Well, ain’t that sweeter ’n pie?” Amethyst told him with a fake Southern twang.
“Fuck off,” he replied, not glancing her way. “You’ve got a job. Go do it.”
“I was waiting on Dylan. Are you done with her?” Amethyst shot back at him.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
When he reached me, he leaned against the bar and gave Nina a sexy grin that had once stolen my breath. Perhaps it still did things to me now, but I would like to pretend it didn’t affect me at all. Not in the least.
“Can I have a slice of bread, beautiful?” he asked her.
Nina sighed and put her mug down on the counter, then picked up a knife. “Yes. But only if you promise to be on your best behavior with this one. I like her.”
He nodded. “You can trust that,” he assured her. “Pep would kill me otherwise.”
She handed him a slice of buttered deliciousness on a napkin. “You aren’t known for respecting things like that,” she told him.
“When it comes to my sister, I am,” he replied, taking the bread. “Thank you.”
She gave him a nod, then turned her attention back to me. “Take yours with you. And don’t be a stranger.”
I returned her smile and stood up, taking my uneaten slice. “Thank you.”
Micah nodded his head toward the red door. “Let’s take it to the library.”
Library? Who around here read, and what kind of books did they read?
5
Micah
I should have called Pepper the moment I brought Dolly back here. I knew that, yet I still hadn’t called her. Mostly because I wasn’t ready for the drama that was gonna ensue when I did. My sister was a hothead, and when she found out that her timid little best friend had been dating the man who had stolen a hundred grand of arsenal from us while using Pepper as a distraction five years ago, she was gonna lose her shit. Keeping Pepper from going after Canyon Acree herself would be a full-time job. She had her own reasons for hating him.