Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
“Kellen,” she says, starting slightly. “How long have you been watching me?”
“A few minutes.” I cock my head and come forward. Some of my anger’s beginning to drain away. “Busy?”
“Yes, I’m busy.” She chews her lip and squints at the sky. “It’ll be too hot to work out here soon.”
“My mother likes you, you know.” I don’t know why I say it. I’m not even sure it’s true. What she said back there is bothering me: that bad one from the rotten family.
How did Cait and Tara first meet? I can’t remember anymore.
“I doubt that honestly. Your mother hasn’t been well for a while.”
“She said so. I brought her out onto the porch and we were watching you.” I wave back at the house.
Tara frowns at me for a long moment, shading her eyes. “That’s weird,” she says finally. “Not the part where you brought your mother outside, that’s actually very sweet. Just the part where you were watching me.”
“You happened to be working in our line of sight. What should I have done, not looked?”
“Preferably.”
“Doesn’t matter. Mom likes you.”
“I guess that means we have her blessing.”
I laugh and it feels like something eases inside my chest. I didn’t realize how much tension I’d been carrying around until right this moment. Funny how Tara can make some of it ease, even when I’m wound so tightly I feel like I might break to pieces.
“I wouldn’t go that far, but I take it you’ve been thinking about my proposal.”
“Yeah, well—” She clips the hedge some more with ruthless, rough strokes, like she’s pretending it’s my neck. “It was the perfect proposal. What every girl wants. No ring, no romance. Just a business arrangement.” She looks at me, glaring hard. “I still haven’t decided.”
“You need to figure it out soon. I don’t know how long Mom’s—” I stop myself, glancing back at the house, and the silence feel heavy.
“Was she bad today?” Tara asks softly.
I look back and shake my head. “Not at first.”
“Sometimes I hear she’s pretty lucid. Other times—” She shrugs slightly.
“She thought I was my dad and asked when Cait was coming home.”
Tara winces like I slapped her. “Shit, Kellen. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. We had a good conversation up to that point.”
“That must be hard though. Do you think she remembers?”
“Somewhere inside she knows Cait’s gone.” I take a deep breath and slowly release it. More tension goes out into the air. “But I’m not sure she’s able to process it.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I knew how to help, but I guess I don’t.”
I walk over and pick up some of the clippings. She watches as I toss them into the brown bag then gesture at her to keep going.
Without speaking, we start working together. She cuts and I collect, and slowly we move around the patch of unruly plants together, and for an hour, I can concentrate on nothing more important than packing clippings into a bag and watching Tara’s body move. I ease into the moment, marveling at her legs and arms and back and lips. It’s sensual, but I’m also impressed by her strength, her body lean and toned from working outdoors. I want to pin her against a wall again, but this time I’ll bite her lip and kiss her hard and make her whimper my name. I get lost in filthy thoughts like that, and for a while, we just work.
It’s strangely comfortable, though at first the silence is tense, but by the time we finish, it’s like we’ve been doing this our whole lives. I drag the full bag back to her compost heap and leave it leaning against a large wooden hutch.
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, stripping off her gloves and wiping her brow. “I could’ve handled it.”
“You think I helped because I thought you needed me to?”
“If you’re trying to butter me up for marriage, that won’t work either.”
I shake my head and start walking. “I helped because I wanted to, that’s all.”
“Don’t tell me there’s no ulterior motive.”
“Not everything’s a power struggle all the time.”
“Not in this family,” she calls out as I round a bend and her little cottage disappears from sight.
Chapter 7
Tara
I’m still thinking about Kellen hours later when it’s past the hottest point of the day and the sun’s dipping down. Purples, reds, oranges, and more burst across the sky, and I’m busy poking at cactus plants trying to make sure they’re going to blossom properly in the next few weeks and wondering if I need to maybe replant them somewhere else.
But I’m mostly fussing and picturing Kellen’s muscular arms and chest as he carried around that overstuffed bag. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that we could go dump it and get another one since he seemed so intent on collecting and hauling, and I doubt he’s ever worked outside doing any landscaping in his life. Not to say Kellen hasn’t been through some shit and done hard work, just that gardening isn’t his thing.