Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
The inner door opens first, revealing a knowing-smile-sporting Norah through the storm door. She pushes it open too and then steps out onto the stoop beside me.
“Hey, Tad.”
“Hey, Nor. Can I see Breezy? Is she home?” I ask, pretending I wasn’t spying my ass off enough to know the answer to that question already.
“She’s here, yes, but she’s resting. I really think she needs the sleep, and with how exhausted she was, I doubt she’ll be up before tomorrow morning.”
“Is she…is she okay, though?”
Norah smiles gently. “Yes. She’s fine. Why don’t you go home for tonight—”
“Norah,” Logan says from behind me, startling both of us before I can dive into more questions about Breezy’s well-being. I don’t know how he managed to pull in, park, and close his car door without us noticing, but he did, and his timing is really starting to make the two of us seem like a package deal—which is not to my advantage.
“Logan, what are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? The same thing I’ve been doing here. Trying to set things right with my brother and sister. Please, let me inside so I can try.”
Norah shakes her head. “It’s not a good idea. Breezy needs to rest, and Bennett doesn’t want you here. I have to respect that. You need to leave until he’s ready to talk to you.”
“And where am I supposed to go exactly?”
“I hear the Red Bridge Inn is really nice. Or hell, maybe Tad here will put you up.”
I scoff. “Not likely.”
Norah sucks her lips into her mouth to block a laugh. “Sounds like the Inn is the place to be.”
I laugh, and she turns her energy on me, pointing in my face. “You’re laughing, but I’m pretty sure I told you to leave too.”
I sigh. “Right. I’ll try again tomorrow.”
Shoving past Logan, I make my way back over the property line to my driveway and consider my options. The house—where I’ll be tempted to stand at the damn window all night trying to get a peek—or my truck, which quite frankly, could take me any number of distracting places even if only for a little while.
The choice is obvious.
I climb inside and fire it up, flicking the switch to turn on my headlights only after I’ve pointed myself away from Norah and Bennett’s house.
I don’t think much about a plan, and when my truck seemingly pulls itself into the parking lot of The Country Club under ten minutes later, I chalk it up to muscle memory and nothing more.
The number of nights I’ve spent drinking my sorrows away at this bar could earn me a badge if that were the sort of thing Clay got off on giving out—sidenote, it’s not. But over the past two months, that’s clearly changed. Nights I used to spend at the bar have been spent at my house with Breezy instead. Well, besides a week ago, when I let myself drown in my fucking misery.
And right now, sitting with my belly to the bar tonight feels odd. Wrong, even.
Sheriff Peeler gives me a nod from the other end, and I jerk my chin back, focusing on the soda I just ordered to avoid all the other eyes.
Clay shuffles in and out from the back room, dragging in cases of beer for the inevitable weekend rush that’s a constant when you’re the only watering hole in a twenty-five-mile radius, and Marty works the bar, filling orders and giving shit where appropriate.
Marty’s wife, Sheila, is ponied up on one of the stools to my right, her low-cut top and tight jeans screaming “young mother out on the town for the night” in a way that makes me reflective.
The endless nights of feedings and light speed growth from infancy to toddlerdom.
The bittersweet feeling of a night to yourself—finally—only to spend it scrolling through pictures of your little one the whole time.
I shake my head and blow out a breath, considering a real drink.
Before I can think further on it, I wave at Marty to get his attention, and he holds up a finger while he stops on his way from the other end of the bar to flirt with his wife while they make the most of his working during their only chance for a date.
“Hey, Tad,” Hillary Howard, Red Bridge’s fast-talking real estate mogul, says from my left side, pushing into the bar behind me and throwing her own exasperated arm up at our bartending Casanova. “Ready to put your place on the market yet? I can get you a twenty percent return. I also have a nice little Tudor that would be perfect for you right off Spruce Lane. It was Sandy McHugh’s old place before she left to live with her daughter and grandkids in Molene.”
My chuckle is brittle at best, tired from the sheer amount of time I’ve been treading water while shark Hillary circles me. I swear she’s been on my ass since the day after I moved in.