Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59947 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
“He is. Not always easy to work for but…generous.” She casts her gaze around the cabin, as if to indicate that her trip here was part of that generosity.
Which is exactly like Harris. Yet for a moment, something heavy and dark grips my chest. Wondering if there’s something more between them. Wondering if his generosity might have another meaning than the obvious.
But if Harris was interested in Abbie Walker, he’d be out here with her. He wouldn’t have left her to face an intruder with only a poker.
“He is generous,” I agree finally. Reeling a bit. Was that jealousy that just hit me?
It couldn’t be.
At least now the cabin is another point in common that’s safe to discuss. She asks, “Do you come out here often with him?”
“By myself, usually—when I’m on deadline or I don’t want any distractions. It’s a good place to be alone with only your own thoughts for company.”
“I thought it would be, too,” she says dryly. Then, “On deadline?”
Before I can stop myself, my gaze shoots to the paperbacks under the side table.
Shit. I’d been so thrown off by the jealousy gripping my chest, I didn’t even think about what came out of my mouth. My books aren’t something I tell people about. Particularly since my earliest work hits real close to home. Anyone who knows me would recognize the basis for a whole slew of characters.
Including the Walkers.
I look away quick, but Abbie’s not slow. Her eyebrows shoot sky high.
“Do you come out here to sneakily read or to sneakily write about zombie megafauna?”
“Write.” No point in lying.
“And that’s why you came out here this time?”
I nod, though it’s only partially true. Until the shitshow at my dad’s lodge, I had no intention of visiting the cabin. But once I left, my plan was to come here and write. I cleared a few weeks off my schedule to plow through a first draft, but the beginning of the story is giving me more trouble than I’ve ever had. And now I’ve lost a couple of days when I could have been working, thanks to the concussion. I’ll have to make up for it.
Her eyebrows draw down in a puzzled frown. “You’re an author, then—but I thought you were an engineer? Something like that?”
“A structural engineer. I do house inspections.”
I don’t consider it an unusual profession but her confusion deepens. “Inspections? What kind?”
“For people buying or selling their houses. Usually for people buying, making sure there aren’t any hidden issues that will cost a fortune to fix down the road.”
“Oh.” The reason for her confusion becomes clear when she adds, “I always assumed you worked with your dad.”
I can’t stop my short, bitter laugh. “No. I’m an independent contractor.”
“Ah.” Her gaze falls to her plate, where her fingers are clenched tightly around her knife and fork. “So you don’t work for him. But you were there when he bulldozed my mom’s house.”
“That reason was more personal.” And ended up being a day that opened my eyes to who my father truly was.
No, that’s not right. My eyes had been opened for a while. But it one of the final nails in the coffin of our relationship. Not the final nail. That happened right before I came here.
And we’ve gone way outside of our safe zone. I try to steer us back.
“So, what exactly is it you do for Harris?”
At some point I hope to make her smile, but the one she offers now is a twisted, sneering version of one. “I throw shit in his face, then say it’s his own damn fault. Then I never take responsibility for the damage I do.”
A syrupy glob of pancake and peanut butter wedges itself in my gullet. For a second, I think that must have been something my dad said. But, no. It was me. Harris told me that he was hiring a Walker girl, and I shot back with a variation of the same thing I’d likely said a dozen times to him over the years.
Harris must have told Abbie. Knowing him, he thought she’d get a laugh.
She’s not laughing. Abruptly she stands and carries her plate to the sink.
I never take responsibility for the damage I do. I said that about her. But the description fits me, instead. Saying shit that could have cost her a job. A good job. Though I didn’t really know a thing about her.
I need to apologize, but the pancake is still stuck in my throat. Then she returns to her armchair by the fire but turns her back toward me. Clearly not wanting to hear anything I might possibly have to say.
I will apologize. When she’s ready to listen. I don’t think she’d listen right now.
And I hope to fuck she never reads my first book.
Abbie
Abbie
Though Reed said he was feeling better, the morning’s activity apparently saps his energy. By ten, he’s in bed again. Either a belly full of pancakes put him to sleep, or the lingering effects of his concussion did.