Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Luckily, Wolf had Nathan. I didn’t have anyone. Not anymore.
Nathan was the son of his best friend, who also was a cop. Nathan’s parents were also killed by the same psycho that had shot Wolf and his family. The little boy was also shot in the same attack.
Wolf had literally been left with nothing. Yet, somehow in the aftermath of that nightmare, he made the decision to take care of Nathan, who had his own challenges after suffering the same type of gunshot wound that Wolf had.
Wolf had made a full recovery, though, and Nathan had required several surgeries to repair the damage he sustained in the attack.
Now Nathan was going on three and a half years old, and he was a bright and shining star compared to his old self.
He was thriving with Wolf, and he was seriously the best little boy in the world.
I loved him to pieces, and I loved Wolf even more for taking on Nathan.
Not that I would expect anything less from my brother.
Wolf lived for challenges.
Hell, our whole entire childhood had been a challenge.
Wolf and I had grown up in a trailer house. We’d been dirt fucking poor, and the only food we ever ate was food we either grew or hunted and killed ourselves.
Our parents were both assholes who thought it’d be fun as hell to have kids, but once those kids arrived and they realized just how much work having kids actually was, they’d started to rethink that decision.
Growing up, we’d both been labelled ‘trailer trash’ by our peers in school, and the name had stuck until I’d moved away.
To this day, if I went back to my old home town, I’d still have to deal with the name calling.
Once trailer trash, always trailer trash, my mom always made sure to say to me.
“Earth to July,” Wolf teased. “Where’s your head at?”
I glared at Des as she snorted from her seat on the paint can and turned back to my brother to hand him all the tools.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked, pointing to the Halligan.
The Halligan was a multipurpose tool that most firefighters carried to use on the scene of an accident, and it was well constructed since they had to rely on its efficiency. Because of that, it also cost a pretty penny and was one of those tools that you would hate to lose because they were not only costly, but also hard to acquire.
I didn’t know where Dean had gotten this particular one, but I’d used it every day since I had decided to completely tear apart my own house and fix it up.
“No comment,” I muttered. “I already turned the power off to this side of the house.” I pointed to the breaker box. “But you might want to double-check just in case.”
“Is this load bearing?” He touched the wall.
“No clue,” I shrugged. “I was going to knock it down and put a post here,” I pointed to the spot. “So it should be okay.”
Wolf glanced at me.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m surprised you haven’t died from a roof caving in on you yet.”
Shaking his head as he turned away from me, he started going around looking at the area to make sure the wall he was about to tear down wasn’t actually load bearing.
Once he’d ascertained it wasn’t, he started to work, and I went back to peeling the wallpaper off the wall in the living room.
“Why do you think that person put wallpaper over that nice wood?” Des asked, studying the wall.
“No clue,” I replied honestly. “What I do know, though, is that it’s going to save me quite a bit of money.” I pointed to the carpeting. “Pull that up and look at the floor underneath.”
She did, and I heard her gasp of surprise.
“You lucky dog!” She laughed. “You should see the floor in the other house. It’s terrible.”
I didn’t want to.
In fact, I’d been doing a pretty bang up job at ignoring the fact that Dean was over there until she brought it up once again.
Jesus.
I could tell the next couple of months were going to suck.
Really bad.
Chapter 4
What’s the difference between a hippo and a Zippo? One is really heavy, and the other one is a little lighter.
-Corny joke of the day
Dean
My ass was dragging as I let my feet slide to the ground, exiting my truck about as gracefully as a thirty-six-year-old man who’d just come off of a forty-eight-hour shift could.
“You’re late,” Able called from the roof.
I waved him off.
“Fucking MVC,” I grunted. “Right before shift change, of course.”
Able laughed.
I was not as amused as him.
He knew the pros and cons of being a firefighter, and being late was one of the cons.
“Patients make it?” he wanted to know.
I stretched my arms up high over my head, relishing in the way my back popped, and then walked toward him.