Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 77120 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77120 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Tabitha, though, looks amazing. Freshly showered, her hair done and bouncing along her shoulders. She’s wearing a miniskirt and a green T-shirt, and her nipples are poking against her clearly unlined bra.
Fuck, her nipples tasted good. So hard against my tongue, yet the texture was like silk.
And her pussy…
Sweetest I’ve ever fucked.
God, here comes the guilt…
Angie takes the steaming cup of coffee from Anya, inhales, her eyes closed, and then takes a cautious sip. She plunks down in a chair across from Tabitha. “You sleep okay, Tabs?”
“Yeah, great, thanks,” Tabitha replies. Her cheeks are slightly flushed. They have been since I walked into the room.
And her lips… I don’t know if she has anything on them, but they’re so perfectly pink and full.
Sweetest lips I’ve ever kissed.
God, I fucked up. Royally. But guilt aside, I can’t bring myself to regret it.
Angie yawns again. “Are you sitting down, Henry?”
I frown. “No, I just got back from a ride, so I need a shower. Then I should go to the office.”
“My wedding is tomorrow,” Angie whines. “And the rehearsal’s tonight.”
“Yeah, but that’s tonight,” I say.
She leans toward me. “Are you doing anything with Jason this afternoon?”
“We don’t have any plans.”
“He should be here by noonish,” Angie says. “I talked to him last night, and he was going to get an early start this morning after his rounds.”
Damn. Am I expected to show Jason around the ranch or whatever? It’s not like Angie hasn’t shown him everything already.
I take a long sip of coffee before responding. “We didn’t make any plans. And I’ve already been shoving off so much crap on Bradley lately because of…”
I don’t need to complete the response. They know what I’m talking about.
And when my mother looks at me with sympathy in her eyes, I kind of want to fall into a hole.
“I’m sure Bradley understands,” Mom says.
“Why should he understand, Mom? His dad is going through hell right now.”
“And you were covering for him when that started last year,” Mom says. “He doesn’t mind covering for you now when you’re going through something.”
Going through something…
It’s not like I want her to say it in front of Tabitha.
But what the hell? Tabitha knows. She was there.
So was Angie.
And the rest of them? They all know.
I fucking killed a man.
Yeah, he deserved it, but I took a life.
And that’s fucked up.
I sigh.
“You’ve got to eat something,” Mom says. “I know how much you love Anya’s frittata.”
“Okay, fine.” I sit down next to my mother, as far away from Tabitha as I can get.
Anya dishes up the frittata and adds a generous portion of hash browns to each plate. She distributes the plates and then refills our coffee and juice.
I take a bite, let the egg mixture slide over my tongue. It is delicious. I like tasting food again. For a while, after the shooting, everything tasted like cardboard.
Finally I’m enjoying food—when I actually feel hungry, which is seldom.
But this morning I am feeling hungry. Probably from the workout I got last night in the barn.
When was the last time I was with a woman?
Damn. It was the night I was in Westminster at that conference Bradley was supposed to go to. The second night I took Angie to dinner, and afterward, after she drove back to Boulder, I stopped in the hotel bar for a drink.
Met a woman.
Went to her room.
Fucked her silly for two hours.
Then returned to my own room.
That was the last time. And it was only days before I took a man’s life.
Thirteen
Tabitha
Henry’s avoiding my gaze.
It seems so obvious, but Angie and Marjorie are chatting away like nothing weird is going on.
I want Angie to be happy. She’s going to be married tomorrow, for goodness’ sake.
And I want Henry to be happy.
What happened between us was amazing. It was also strange.
Then he left me in the barn.
I didn’t come here with any expectations. Angie told me Henry was having trouble coping with the fact that he had taken someone’s life. She said he was getting better, working full days again, joking around again.
Apparently I have a bad effect on him.
Because now he seems as sullen as ever.
He finishes his frittata quickly without saying so much as a word and then refills his coffee cup.
“Henry?” Marjorie says.
“I told you. I’m going to the office. There are a few things that need to be done.” Then he looks at Angie. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back sometime in the early afternoon, probably around one or two. If Jason needs anything, I’ll be here. I’m the best man, after all.” Then he gives a smile, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Okay,” Angie says. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem.” Henry leaves the kitchen.
“How come you’re up so early?” Angie asks me.
“I’ve always been an early riser,” I say.
“You’re not an early riser until you grow up on a ranch,” she says. “Right, Mom?”