Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
What’s continuing to happen.
What will be happening again and again.
That he loves me.
That he wants to be with me.
Plans to.
Our arrival at the side garage door is accompanied by Garcia tossing me a mischievous smirk. “You really wanna see your boyfriend squirm? Ask him about his twenty-first birthday and why he’s been banned for life from Pirate’s Beach View.”
Seeing my boyfriend’s face pale in color causes me to grin widely. “What happened at Pirate’s Beach View, Sir?”
He aggressively opens the door to kick our attorney out. “That’s not-”
Bunny’s sudden, sharp scream sends my stare out the door to where a familiar face lies still, stiff, and lifeless with the message “Happy Birthday” carved jaggedly into his forehead.
Fuck.
Maybe this isn’t the runner up for worst birthday.
Maybe it just became the first-place trophy holder.
Chapter 5
Bunny
Death Canyon, Texas.
Population thirty-four.
Thirty-five – since we’re including me.
Wait.
Thirty-six since we need to include the unborn child that they’re planning to name Mitzi Jo.
Hillbillyheavenfuckingforbids, that they don’t attach the name Jo to a sixth generation.
I learned that at the grocery store yesterday.
Along with all the details of Posie’s new, mysterious boyfriend who evidently looks suspiciously similar to Kipp.
Although Suzie swears Kipp’s much cuter.
And sweeter.
And has much better manners considering he still wouldn’t let me unload the cart.
He just got hired to wash dishes at The Dig Site, which is why he’s here, sitting beside her, listening to the speeches being made in spite of the fact he doesn’t live here.
Only thirty-sixish people live in this small town; however, many more people – like him – work here, hence the packed room.
Tucking the red pen I had been doodling with into my bun is done in tandem with letting my gaze wander around the renovated barn where the town hall meeting is being held.
According to The Kid, Annabelle Steel is the building’s official owner – which she uses to host primarily over the top rustic weddings since her parents died – yet grants permission to the town to use it whenever they have one of these things.
Nolan says it’s not often.
But murder literally left on our doorstep two days ago warrants one.
Flashes of John November’s mangled corpse cause me to adjust uncomfortably again in my backrow, metal fold out chair.
How did he predict that my ex – aka the storm – would find him?
Destroy him?
This town?
How did my ex know that using him to deliver a death message would spook me more than someone else?
Or was November just the easiest target?
And if he was…what exactly made him an easy target?
Job?
The affair?
Location?
And if it’s location then…how close is Brad, really?
Did he have one of his bounty hunters drop him off at our feet or did he do it personally?
Was putting him there done to measure our response?
Reaction time?
See how many men there are actually surrounding me?
Was it a ploy to get us out of the apartment to plant recording devices?
A tracker?
Perhaps another tracker considering that I may have one inside of me.
Was killing November part of some other, bigger, more nefarious plot or simply the next step in his demented amusement where he assumes the man’s death will have me just curl back into myself?
Shun the world.
Shut out everyone to the point I ruin any opportunity to have the extra defense needed in our bloody game of cat and mouse where he believes he’s some white collar Al Capone that no one can or will touch.
He got exactly what he wanted from me the first time.
I almost fled the safest place I’ve ever felt.
Bailed on the two people who have done nothing but love and protect me since we crossed paths.
And the next time he pulled a stunt?
He got exactly what he wanted from me then too.
I reverted back to my old ways.
I stopped talking.
And eating.
And thinking.
And emotionally abandoned the two people who refused to stop showing up because some creep in the shadows swears, he’ll take what he claims is his.
This third time?
I’m not giving him what he wants.
I’m not going to run.
I’m not going to cower.
I’m staying right where I am and fighting for my life because it’s long overdue.
Because I finally have a life worth fighting for.
You know…maybe the cops still don’t believe me about being stalked.
Maybe they’ll never believe me.
But the older man who has his arm possessively wrapped around my shoulder and the younger one who has his palm resting on my thigh so that his thumb can loving stroke it certainly do.
And they’re willing to stop at nothing when it comes to protecting what we have.
“These are most certainly some unusual times,” Elijah Post, the sheriff continues to explain, keeping most of the audience’s attention focused on him. “However, we will not let what happened to John, happen to anyone else in our town!”
Hoots and hollers and applauds of approval have me scanning the crowd for the ones that aren’t.