Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 53361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Her expression shifted, softening into something that looked almost like relief. That genuine smile returned, the one that made something warm unfurl behind my ribs. “Looks like I’ll be your regular driver, then.”
The words hit me with unexpected force. Regular. She’d be back. I’d see her again. Christ, I was so fucked. “Good.” The word came out rougher than I intended, loaded with more meaning than I should have let show.
She held my gaze for another heartbeat, something passing between us that felt like acknowledgment. Like she understood exactly what I wasn’t saying. Then she slid into her car, started the engine with that familiar rough cough.
I stepped back, giving her room to reverse. Watched through the windshield as she adjusted her mirrors, tucked hair behind her ear with fingers that still trembled slightly. She glanced up once before pulling away, catching my eye, and I saw my own recognition reflected back at me.
Her car disappeared toward the gate. I stood there long after the sound of her engine faded. My hand came up without conscious thought, fingers finding the scar she’d touched. More in remembrance of her touch than how I’d gotten the scar.
Those few minutes had shifted my insides. Holding her had shoved me headfirst into a world I wasn’t certain I was ready for or deserved, but a fundamental change burst through me and I felt the alteration in every cell. The numbness I’d maintained for so fucking long, the careful emotional distance I’d constructed to survive my grief, developed a crack. And through that fissure, something dangerous had crept in. Interest. Attraction. The first genuine spark of feeling I’d experienced since Sarah’s murder.
I should have been terrified. Should have recognized this as the threat it was to my carefully maintained equilibrium. But standing there in the compound with my skin still warm where Cora had touched me, I found I couldn’t muster fear. Only anticipation and the certainty that everything had just changed, and there was no going back.
She’d come to me again. And I’d be waiting, this spark she’d ignited already burning brighter than it should, already threatening to consume the careful walls I’d built around what remained of my heart. I knew these feelings weren’t rational and I felt like some kind of stalker fixating on a young woman who’d showed me a kind smile. And maybe that’s all it was on her part.
I needed to take a step back, stay away from her anytime she came around but I knew I wouldn’t. Dangerous and reckless didn’t begin to describe how that scenario would play out. But inevitable. For the first time in six years, I looked forward to tomorrow. And I’d be Goddamned if I willingly gave up the reason my soul finally showed signs of coming back to life.
Chapter Three
Cora
Week three, and I had made at least four runs a week to the compound since the first run. With the cash tips -- which usually equaled a hundred percent or better -- I made more from them than I did the rest of my runs combined. Turns out, part of the club’s territory included the New Beginnings women’s shelter. I’d known they protected the place but had no idea they’d actually donated the building. The more I learned about this place, the more I realized how very much everyone in the whole of the Goddamned city misjudged these people.
As I pulled through the gates, I waved at the two men manning the gate. Griffin and Diesel each raised a hand as I rolled through. I’d made a few friends and gotten to know several of the men and women inside the compound. Every single person I’d met was either pleasant or grumpy on the outside but marshmallows on the inside. To a man, the guys protected the women, especially at New Beginnings or Haven, as they called the shelter.
The compound looked different today. I realized about a week ago I’d started seeing the place as more of a kind of safe haven. I loved coming here because no one leered, played grab-ass, or made sexual innuendos every single fucking time I stepped foot inside the place. Which was way the fuck more than I could say about some homes I delivered to. The strange part wasn’t that I kept coming back, but how relieved I felt when the delivery app pinged with their address.
I parked in what I now thought of as “my spot” near the kitchen entrance. Two women I hadn’t seen before looked up from a conversation, their eyes tracking my movement as I got out of the car. One nodded in recognition though we’d never met.
I popped the trunk and it opened with a familiar squeak. I’d started unloading bags when one of the women approached. She was petite with light brown hair tucked behind her ears.