Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 106774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106774 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
My body protests the movement, screaming and aching in places that shouldn’t hurt from driving and sleeping. Fog clouds my head. A sound emanates from my stomach with a reminder that I haven’t eaten much since I left Denver on Thursday, and it’s now … Sunday?
I swipe at the bedside table until my hand lands on my phone. Sunday at noon. Shit.
“How the hell is it noon already?” I grab the edge of the only blanket I could find without really looking too hard and rip it off the one leg it covers. “I gotta get my ass up.”
Groaning, I roll out of bed and slip on a pair of shorts.
The apartment’s warm and stuffy as I stumble into the living room, still in a haze. Everything I own is shoved in boxes that are stacked in a fucked-up game of Jenga in the corner. I’ve avoided dealing with it. Unpacking and putting it all away feels like a bad omen. If my contract doesn’t get extended past this year, I’ll just be loading it all up in a couple of months.
I don’t want to jinx it. Because even if Renn thinks I’m a fuckup, there are too many upsides to playing for the Royals. I can’t screw this up.
“I gotta get some food,” I say, yawning. But before I can make it to the kitchen, my phone buzzes in my hand.
Hartley: Are you alive?
The corners of my lips curl toward the ceiling at my younger brother’s name displayed at the top of the screen.
Me: I think so.
Hartley: Then call me.
He doesn’t wait for that to happen, probably because he doesn’t trust that I’ll do it. Instead, my device lights up with an incoming call.
“You didn’t give me time,” I joke, entering the kitchen. I tap the speakerphone button and carry the phone in front of me.
“I could have given you a year, and I’d still be waiting on the phone to ring.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
He snorts. “So how was the trip?”
“Long,” I say, opening the refrigerator. Empty shelves stare back at me, so I close it. “Rained so hard in Kansas City that I stopped for an hour. Then I sat behind an overturned semi for far too fucking long. Otherwise, it was uneventful.”
“Better to have an uneventful trip than a trip full of problems.”
A door slams in the background, followed by the crunching of gravel, probably in the shape of my brother’s favorite worn-out cowboy boots. The sound evokes the scent of dirt and the sensation of sunshine on my face. I can almost hear the flag in front of his house, the one we grew up in, whipping in the wind.
My chest pulls tight at the thought of a place that holds so many great memories for me. Sitting down with family for Sunday dinners after church. Running through the fields with my brother on warm summer days. Splashing in the creek that Mom forbid us to play in, building forts in the woods, and pestering Dad’s workers for a taste of their tobacco. The one time we managed to get some from a ranch hand named Earl, we hurled our guts out behind the barn. I still can’t smell mint without wanting to puke.
The trade from Denver to Nashville, within an hour of Sugar Creek, felt like an opportunity to try to find that again. The irony is not lost on me that I’m running toward the very thing from which I bolted. Simplicity. Peace. Being surrounded by people who know who you are and not what the media says you’ve become.
“What’s going on with you?” I ask, rubbing my sternum.
“Same old stuff. Just got home from church. I had to duck out of there during the last hymn, so I didn’t get roped into the monthly birthday potluck after the service.”
“Since when do you turn down home-cooked food?” I laugh as my stomach growls. “Or do you have a woman helping you take care of that these days?”
“I usually stay for it, but I have two ewes in labor. I left Bobby in the barn to keep an eye on them this morning, but he has somewhere to be by four o’clock. I told him I’d be back in plenty of time for him to get cleaned up and get out of there.”
I lean against the side of the couch and smile knowingly. The chances of Hartley having a woman at the ranch are about one in however many women are in Sugar County. And that one hasn’t been around in years, but he won’t move on. Just in case.
That’s the thing about Hartley—he’s a good man. He inherited Mom’s patience and Dad’s aptitude, and he does nothing without going all in. He’s loved Mira St. James since he was five years old. By the looks of it, I doubt that’ll ever change.