Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Getting that call while I’d been out with friends…
The sound of a snowmobile pulling up outside had me freezing.
I turned to look out the dirty windows to see Denver wearing his winter rancher’s garb—thick Carhartt overalls. Winter boots that were meant to work. A worn-out Carhartt jacket that looked like it’d been well used and loved for years upon years. And a beanie that came down low over his head, mostly covering his eyebrows.
But those honey-colored eyes met mine through the dirty windowpane and he started up the steps.
I went to the door and met him there.
There wasn’t much difference between the outside of the house and the inside, so I didn’t bother to invite him inside. I just stood in the doorway with my arms crossed tightly over my chest.
“Are you going to make me leave?” I asked.
He looked at the house around me, noted the falling-off screen door. The missing board on the front porch that should’ve been replaced years ago. The peeling paint. The charred boards that met the uncharred ones.
He didn’t miss a thing when he said, “Yeah. You’re going to have to leave.”
Those words were the final nails in the “I hate Sinclair Windsor” coffin.
Especially when he listened to me beg and held his ground.
THREE
I’m just impressed with how ugly I’m willing to look in public these days.
—Holly’s secret thoughts
HOLLY
Four months later
“Holly!” Boone called from the OR.
I looked over at him through the glass windows, surprised that I’d heard him, and called, “Yeah?”
He gestured me closer with his chin, and I walked to the door and pushed it slightly open.
“Got a couple of house calls we need to make. Can you check those?”
I looked at the poor horse that was currently being held up by straps as he performed surgery on the front part of a horse’s chest and nodded, “Sure.”
“Thanks.” He gave me a brief smile, knowing that his presence made me uncomfortable.
I’d been working for Boone Windsor for four months now, and it wasn’t too bad.
Sure, I wasn’t always super happy with his style of work—all my way or the highway—but it was doable.
He also didn’t make me hate him like his uncle did. Though, I use the term “uncle” loosely seeing as they were closer in age to brothers than uncle/nephew.
I’d agonized for days on whether I should work for Boone or not.
I’d interviewed at four clinics, and all four of them had offered me a job.
However, Boone’s clinic was the only one that was in the same town that I wanted to live in, offered an office vehicle I could drive to appointments, and was within walking distance of the rental that I’d made into my new home.
He’d also offered an advance in money to pay for my apartment for the next few months, as well as promised enough work that I could easily make it on the salary he provided plus some if I wanted to work more.
I’d chosen the job with Boone despite the knowledge that I would be running into the one man that made me want to bash my head into the wall more often than not. Not to mention, I’d have to go out to his farm and play doctor to his livestock when the need arose.
And, apparently, the need arose today.
Fuck.
I looked at the call-outs and groaned.
Two for a farm just outside of Sawtooth, and one in Bear Pass.
Bear Pass being where I used to live. Where Denver now owned half the county land-wise.
Where I would be expected to go today to attend to a couple of sick cattle.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I’d successfully avoided him for the last few months.
I’d seen him once since he’d kicked me out of my house while at work. That’d been where I told him that he was to call me Holly and not Georgina. He’d given me shit about the name change, and Boone’s new wife, Nettie, had told him that he needed to respect me and what I wanted to be called.
Which was funny, seeing as Sinclair wanted to be called Denver and Denver only.
He hated the name Sinclair—or so I’d heard through the Sawtooth gossip mill.
After that conversation with Nettie had happened, I’d made the switch in my brain to calling him Denver. Because she was right, if someone asked to be called something else, you should respect that.
Him going by Denver made him more impersonal to me, anyway. Made him become the man that’d stolen my hopes and dreams from me, not the one that’d helped my dad up off the floor after he’d fallen going to the bathroom.
The man that was the president of the Dixie Wardens MC, and not the nice neighbor that helped my dad out any time he needed it.
“You ready to go?” Young, one of the vet techs, asked.
“Almost,” I lied. “Give me a few to gather my bags and things.”