Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Your truck is kickass, but it’s also old and easy to break into, he replied.
Then before I could text again, I received, Good you don’t leave anything valuable in it.
It wasn’t lost on me anyone with a coat hanger could get into my truck, but the nice part of what he said was that he noticed I wasn’t an idiot.
Come Christmas I’m going to start a business delivering Christmas trees, I joked.
He dropped a “Ha Ha” on that then sent, Playing at The Link tonight. You want to come with me?
Oh man.
I stared at my phone longer and harder that time, but I didn’t want him to think I was hesitating, or that I didn’t want to go, because I did.
I so did.
So I sent, Sure. Meet there or go together?
And got, Together. Pick you up at 9:00.
Even if my heart thumped hard in my chest at his reply, I knew this wasn’t a date.
Or did I know this wasn’t a date?
I’ll be ready, I said.
He dropped a thumbs up on that.
For a second, I didn’t move.
After that second, I ate the rest of my sandwich thoughtfully.
But I didn’t need those thoughts.
I knew what I needed.
A girlfriend to talk this out with.
Although I texted regularly with Mona and Kacey, they knew nothing about the last week and a half of my life, outside getting Moxie and Tonks pictures.
Hutch was a one-night good time, but he wasn’t a thing.
And I didn’t want them worried about The Lion and The Lamb that, as time went by, seemed like they weren’t going to be an ongoing problem.
But I’d had another revelation yesterday.
I might have been mentally holding Abigail at arm’s length, but she had not been doing the same with me.
I’d wanted to keep us as very friendly colleagues to protect my battered heart should I leave.
But she considered me her friend.
I took my plate to the sink, washed up, got Tonks’s lead, my phone, and took my dog out for her midday perimeter walk.
After that was done, I sat on the steps to the porch with her tennis ball, pulled out my phone, and played toss with my dog while I called Abigail.
“Oh my Gaaaaaaaaawwwwwd! I thought you’d never call!” she said as greeting.
I smiled and Tonks dropped the ball in front of me.
I threw it and asked, “Do you have time to chat?”
“Sister, as I predicted, the kids didn’t even ask about the apples after dinner. They dropped dead asleep after pjs and teeth. So I rawked Brett’s world last night with my basketball stud, cheerleader fantasy. He didn’t even care it was Hutch who inspired it. I wore that man owt. He’s now napping, flat out in his lounger in front of a game. And I can assure you, he is not dreaming of football.”
Tonks dropped again, and I threw the ball while I laughed.
“And the kids are at my parents’. So,” she said in a rubbing-hands-together-excitedly tone, “spill all about your hottie-with-a-million-dollar-body dog trainer.”
“Did you just quote Nickelback at me?” I asked.
“Don’t tell Brett. He’s a music purist. He hates them. But a girls’ gotta rock.”
Another laugh from me, then I hesitated.
But in the end, I spilled all.
Tonks’s entire tongue was lolling out, and she was breathing so heavily, her breath was wafting up the steps at me, so I was pretty sure we’d accomplished our quota on doggie exercise for the day or maybe even the whole week.
And since I was getting chilled, and the clouds were rolling in, I got up and me and my dog went inside.
I hadn’t noticed Abigail hadn’t said anything until after I took off Tonks’s leash, she headed direct to her water bowl, I locked my front door, and she said, “Okay, let’s start on good things. Three times? In one night?”
At the memory, feeling warm, weirdly only in my chest and not parts south, I threw myself on the couch and confirmed, “Yeah.”
“Good Lord, I’m never telling Brett that. He can get competitive. I’d enjoy it. But it might give him a coronary.”
I smiled.
“Now…um…your neighbors?” she asked cautiously.
“I know. It was weird. Creepy as all hell. But between Hutch, Mrs. Matthews and a quiet, sweet guy named David, not to mention Tonks, I feel pretty safe.” Well, kinda safe, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “Those and the fact I’d been here for months, nothing happened, and nothing’s happened since that note. And it isn’t like I haven’t been keeping company. Hutch is here a lot.”
“Mm-hmm,” she hummed.
“It isn’t that,” I negated quickly. “I think you probably got from yesterday that he’s not a man who won’t go after what he wants.”
“Oh, I got that. Maybe the best pickup line I’ve ever heard is, ‘You followin’ me or am I followin’ you?’”
There was precisely one man of my acquaintance who could pull off that level of cocky.