Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 41621 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41621 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
There’s a single sunbeam streaming through the window onto Frida. I rub my finger on top of her head. “How you feeling, sweetie?”
She yawns, stretches, and rolls over so I can rub her soft little belly. Then she goes back to sleep with a half-hearted purr.
“I’ll be back with food soon.” I click my teeth together determinedly and finish, “Real kitten food.”
I would do anything for her.
Unlike some people, I don’t abandon the little things that need help.
I start a load of laundry in the shared washing machine before meeting Phil at his Prius, parked at the top of the road. He has a Mystery Spot bumper sticker, beaded seat covers, and an air freshener shaped like a lightsaber. His car smells sort of sticky-sweet.
“How do you like it up here at the retreat?” he asks as we drive down the mountain, with him easing his car at about three miles an hour around every little bump and piece of gravel on the road.
“It’s nice.” I lean toward my open window, my eyes scanning the tree line, hopeful. “I’m not really outdoorsy. But it’s nice.”
“It’s like an awesome summer camp for grownups.” Phil sits up straighter, straining to see out the windshield like something is going to pop out of the dirt and dent his bumper. “I really hope we can do this again next summer. I’d spend the rest of my life on this mountain, but from what I’m hearing, this is probably the last summer we’ll be here.”
Now he’s got my attention. “Is the retreat going away?”
“Lindsay told me that she can’t get the landowner to sign the lease. Without a lease, the university is pulling the plug on the retreat until they can find something else. I guess it was a ten year lease, good terms too. Affordable. The university is cheap. Finding someplace else like this would normally cost a fortune.”
Rutger. Lease. Land.
My heart speeds up at even the suggestion of him. I immediately remember the hard press of his cock between my thighs and a little moan catches in my throat, drawing Phil’s glance.
“I wonder why Rutger won’t sign,” I blurt out, trying to cover my involuntary sex sounds.
Phil opens his mouth like he’s going to give me all the tea, but when he turns his eyes back forward, all that comes out is a strangled shout. “Whoa! Holy shit!”
My gaze snaps forward.
A tree like a skyscraper is arcing downward in a streak of green and brown against the blue sky.
Phil shouts and stomps the brake. “Crap!”
The seatbelt snaps tight across my chest. My hands slap over my ears as stupid disobedient hair comes straight out of its bun to fly in my face.
The little silent-running car comes to an abrupt halt with a loud crash, and the earth shakes under the wheels.
The tree smashes right in front of us, crashing down on the hood of the Prius.
Something didn’t jump up from the road to dent the bumper after all. It fell from the sky. Phil was looking in the wrong direction.
A loud crunch and another jolt as the trunk rolls off the hood, onto the bumper, then crashes into the ground, emphasize the crazy reality of what just happened.
We’re both gape-mouthed inside the car for a long second in the shocking silence that follows, staring at the massive tree that nearly killed us.
Phil scrambles to unbuckle and stumble out of the car. “Nooo,” he wails in a high-pitched, childlike whine, clutching at his head. “My car! My baby!”
I clamber out with my heart galloping like I’ve just won the Triple Crown. We weren’t going that fast when we stopped, but there’s an ache across my chest from the seatbelt, and I can’t stop my hands from shaking. Adrenaline surges, and I have to hold onto the door to stay standing.
The damage to his car is ugly. The tree took off his whole bumper.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I say. “I can’t believe that just happened.”
He flings himself over the dented hood of his car and keeps wailing. “My baaaby!”
The back of my neck prickles. I can feel that someone is watching me. As if I’m being pulled around by an invisible hand, I turn to look up the hill.
He’s there.
Rutger.
Somehow, in the days since we were last together, I’ve forgotten how enormous he is—and I remembered him being pretty big. He definitely could take on a Sasquatch.
And probably win.
His shaggy head gets lost in the branches. His wide shoulders can’t be hidden by a tree trunk. His fists—God, those hands—are clenched at his sides, flexing like they want to wrap around something.
Or someone.
Is he the tree feller? Because I was in the car with another man?
Don’t be ridiculous. Over you?
My brain refuses to accept it, but if it wasn’t him then why that tree, and why now?