Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“Here,” Flynn said simply as he undid a canteen from his saddle and handed it to me. As much as I wanted to shove it back at him, the reality was that I was thirsty as hell. I took several sips of the icy cold water, but when I went to hand the thing back to Flynn, he ignored it and grabbed my wrist instead. Before I was able to process the fact that the man had already broken my no contact or endure the full wrath of Jules rule, Flynn had me settled on BJ’s back, my ass taking up the entire saddle.
“Wha—”
BJ began walking before I could even finish expressing my outrage. Flynn was walking next to BJ, holding the reins, leaving me with nothing but the horn of the saddle to hang on to. I opened my mouth to tell Flynn to stop so I could slide off BJ’s back, but then snapped it shut when I realized I’d just be shooting myself in the foot. Sure, I could walk if I needed to, but why shouldn’t the asshole be on foot while I took a break? It hadn’t been my idea to climb to the top of a mountain—
“I have a congenital heart defect,” Flynn said out of nowhere. The sound of his voice made me jump because I hadn’t been expecting him to speak, so it took me a split second to register his blasé announcement.
No, no, no. It’s not possible.
Panic immediately took hold as I tried to make sense of Flynn’s words. He wasn’t looking at me. He was entirely focused on the path before him.
“Doctors found it after my first attack. I couldn’t be bothered to listen to all the lifestyle changes and medications I’d have to take. I had way too much money to make. Too many nice cars to buy, a big enough place to fit my gigantic ego, important elbows to rub. There was a career ladder that still needed to be climbed because there was no way in hell I was going back to the small piece-of-shit town that had been my entire world for too long.”
I remembered Flynn’s description of his family. Countless siblings, cousins, and uncles and aunts, all of whom seemed to be part of the drug trade his family ran. I wondered how many people got out of such a doomed place.
“Second heart attack did a lot more than open my eyes. Doctors were able to fix as much of the defect as they could so that at least the condition would be manageable, but medicine alone wasn’t going to keep my ticker going. If I wanted to keep walking this earth, I had to change my diet, avoid high-stress jobs and situations. Even then, survival wasn’t a guarantee. So I had a decision to make. I could keep raking in the dough no matter what it took and survive for another year or two at most, or I could wake the fuck up and remember that I’d spent nearly all of my life surviving.”
Flynn was quiet for several long seconds before adding, “When I got out of the hospital for the second time, I went back to my apartment. The plants were all dead, the few things I’d had in my fridge were covered in fur, and several layers of dust coated everything. Nothing had been touched. It was like I’d never existed.” He laughed an ugly chuckle. “There’d been no one to volunteer to water the plants or take out the garbage while I was in the hospital. No one had been at my bedside when I’d woken up with no idea where I was and unable to speak because of the tube shoved down my throat.”
This time when Flynn stopped, I wanted to encourage him to continue because the context he was providing was making it a little easier to understand him.
“We’re here,” Flynn said after several long beats.
True enough, we were in the tree line that was right behind the barn. I could see the farmhouse from where we were. With the sun slowly dropping to meet the horizon, I realized we’d been gone much longer than I’d intended. The thing was, I didn’t regret it. In fact, if anything, I wished Flynn hadn’t set such a quick pace after he’d settled me on BJ’s back. I’d finally gotten to a place where I could read between the lines of what Flynn was saying, and now that was gone.
At my insistence.
“You can ride BJ to the front of the barn without me and then get off and head to the house. I’ll be a few steps behind you. No one will see us together.”
The flat way Flynn made that declaration was a knife to the gut even though it was exactly what I’d wanted, or at least, what I’d pretended I wanted. No, what I’d really wanted had only started to happen when the man had tossed me on his horse. What if I’d stayed on that hilltop even as he’d turned his back on me? If I hadn’t been so self-centered, I might have picked up on Flynn’s distress and asked about it. I would have found a way to prove that he didn’t need to be self-conscious about his scar.