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)
Not an abominable snowman. Just abominable.
Fucking Reed Knowles. Why did I let him in? Why?
I should have let him freeze.
He blinks hard when he gets a good look at me standing in the light of the fire, glowering at him and holding the poker like a baseball bat. His gaze darts around the dim interior of the cabin—probably looking for Harris—before coming back to me.
Still glowering. Still ready to bash his head in.
“You.” He spits that word like a curse. “You’re one of the Walker girls. The vicious one.”
He’s just saying that because I bit him once. Right on the meaty part of his hand, hard enough to draw blood. I don’t know if he has a scar. I hope so.
“I’m only vicious when there’s a reason.” I give the poker a waggle, daring him to give me a reason. It doesn’t even need to be a good reason. “Why are you here?”
His eyes narrow. “I’ve got a blanket invitation from Harris.”
Harris O’Neil. My boss. His friend.
I like Harris, and I usually like his friends. Not this one. “Don’t you check with him before using that blanket invitation?”
“Usually do.” A muscle in his jaw works. “Didn’t tonight.”
“You should have. Because I’m here until after the new year, which I did clear with him. That means I’ve got first dibs, and I’m not going. So you’re leaving,” I say, and he tugs off his gloves. As if declaring his intention to stay even before he replies—
“Can’t.”
Apparently he also can’t be bothered to speak in complete sentences anymore. “Yeah, you can. You just”—letting go of the poker with one hand, I make a flitting gesture toward the door, which he’s still leaning against—“go back the same way you came. How did you get here?” I would have noticed lights from a vehicle, even in a blizzard.
“Snowmobile.”
“Then you can snowmobile away.”
“Wish I could.” His words seem to slur together and his big body sags against the door. “Listen—”
That comes out more like lissssen. “Are you drunk?”
I can’t smell anything on him. But now that I’m paying attention, he doesn’t look too steady and his speech is definitely impaired.
He gives his head a shake—then winces as if the motion hurts and closes his eyes. “No. Though I had an accident—”
Outrage shoots through my veins. “While driving drunk?”
“No,” he bites out, and the force of that denial seems to pain him, too. Reaching up, he pushes his hood back and touches his head—and when he brings his hand forward again, blood coats his fingers. Blood that he doesn’t see, because his eyes are still closed. “And before your goody-goody Walker brain decides to find something else to accuse me of, I wasn’t running off with someone’s wife, either.”
That nasty jab obliterates the small amount of sympathy I felt at the sight of his blood. “Let me guess—someone shot you? Can’t say I blame them.”
Reed doesn’t respond to that. Instead he blinks at his bloody fingers, as if surprised by his own injury. “A tree branch came down on me.”
A big one, I’d guess. Probably broke under the weight of the snow. Too bad it didn’t knock him senseless.
Or maybe it did. Because his back starts sliding down the door as if his legs aren’t supporting him anymore.
“Oh, no no no no—you can’t do that here!” I drop the poker and grab hold of his shoulders, trying to keep him upright. Not easy, considering that he’s a freaking giant. “We’ve got no cell service and my car’s buried in snow. So you cannot pass out here, because I’ve got no way to help you if you’ve got a concussion. Or worse. And you cannot die. Not here.”
“But I can die somewhere else?” He huffs out something like a laugh. “Better to die here. Your fingerprints are all over that poker and my skull is cracked open. Might be worth it to see another Walker get what’s coming to them.”
Something in me goes colder than the blizzard outside. “You think my dad dying wasn’t enough?”
“Considering my mother’s dead, too? No.”
Asshole. But I should have known what his answer would be. Eighteen years ago, I was seven years old—and Reed was twelve—when my dad ran off with his mom. Before they got far, both were killed in a car crash. Though we’ve all paid enough, all grieved enough, the Knowles men will never stop persecuting my family. God knows why. Maybe because my dad wasn’t available to punish, so the Knowles decided to take it out on the Walkers who were left.
He should have gone for a more tactful response, however, since I’m the one keeping him on his feet.
Not anymore. I let go of his shoulders.
Reed drops to the floor in a snowy heap. He lurches forward as if to get up—then seems to rethink that, sitting back again on his ass.