Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I tamped down the anxiety and took a few steps forward, pretending to ignore the way my stomach tensed as I realized where this was.
Really, really fucking close to the graves I’d dug.
Taking a deep breath, I glanced beyond a big tree.
Then I saw it.
The proof that I wasn’t losing my fucking mind.
That flash of red?
It had been hair.
Hair belonging to the woman who was steadily digging in the dirt.
A few feet away, a puppy was attached to a tree, rolled over on his back, and sunning his undercarriage.
He was some kind of mutt, colorful and long-haired.
“I’m so so sorry,” a soft, sing-song voice said, making me stiffen at the unexpected sound.
But she hadn’t seen me.
She wasn’t talking to me.
“You deserved better,” she added, reaching toward something hidden from my view.
A dog crate.
And were those… dead dogs in it?
Puppies, like the one oblivious to the woman’s distress as she tried to reach for one of the bodies, then fell bag on a gag.
I watched as a sob racked her body, taking her down to her knees in the mud, this time partially facing me.
And, fuck.
I lived in a city with over four million fucking women.
Still, no one had ever made me feel winded just by looking at them.
The sharp jaw, the plump lips, the light eyes that had to be either blue or gray, but she was too far away to tell.
Her hair was lighter now that it wasn’t wet, more of a dark copper shade.
With that coloring, I imagined that up close, she might have a smattering of freckles over her nose and cheeks. Maybe her forehead.
Which would only make her fucking prettier.
As for the body, she was kind of petite on the top with a smaller chest and a snatched waist, but thicker on the bottom with plush thighs, and a nice, round ass.
I was so distracted by her that I completely forgot about the puppy.
Who, apparently, finally stopped being oblivious, and not only noticed me, but started barking right at me.
The woman jolted, head whipping up, and immediately spotting me.
Fuck.
There was no chance of just walking away. It would look too suspicious.
It was fine.
Why the hell was I panicking?
This was why I’d dressed like a camper.
In case of a run-in with someone.
“Sorry,” I said, holding up my hands. “I think I got a little turned around,” I told her. Then, because I needed to play the part of a nice guy, I added, “Are you okay?”
“Was it you?” she roared, hopping to her feet, grabbing the shovel as she got up, then brandishing it like a weapon, spade side out.
“Was what me?” I asked, head tipped to the side.
“Did you do this to them?” she raged, waving her hand out toward the dead puppies. “Leave them out here to die?” she asked, voice catching again.
I didn’t have to be close to know there were tears in her eyes.
Was that what this was?
Had she found a puppy in the woods?
Was that why she’d been out at night.
Trying to get him? Trying to figure out where he’d come from?
Or maybe he’d run off or something.
It had nothing to do with me in the woods, hiding bodies.
Bodies, in fact, that were hidden just about a dozen or so yards back from where she was standing right now. I could just about make out the carefully constructed log pile that I’d put on top of the freshly dug-up ground.
“Whoa whoa whoa,” I said, taking a step back. “What? No. This is the first time I’ve been here. I must have wandered off my trail,” I added. “Are those puppies?” I asked.
Her shoulders slackened, just a little. But she kept the shovel up. And why wouldn’t she? She was a woman, alone in the woods with a man she didn’t know. With only a couple-month-old puppy to protect her.
“Someone dumped all three of them,” she said, voice tight, trying to fight back tears. “God, I hope it was just the three of them,” she added, glancing around like one could be hidden somewhere. Hurt or dead as well. “He found his way to… me,” she said, the cadence weird, like she was stopping herself short from saying something.
But what?
“I wanted to bury them,” she said, glancing back at the puppies. “They deserve a proper burial.”
“Do you want some help?” I asked, jerking my head toward the bodies.
I had a lot of experience with dead bodies. But all of them had been human. Somehow, this seemed worse.
If there was one thing I knew about the nameless bodies I packed up, buried, sank, or melted, it was that they weren’t innocent. They wouldn’t have wound up murdered by the mob if they were. So I didn’t feel much about the fact that their lives had been snuffed out.
Kind of that old adage about playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes.