Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 70488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“Hey,” I said in affront. “I love my family.”
“You love your family,” he agreed. “But if you thought it was in their best interest to burn, you’d let them.”
He had a point.
“He has a point,” Candice agreed with my inner monologue, turning to Hampton. “How many times did he start some shit with Vera and you before you got the nerve to quit and pursue firefighting?”
Hampton sighed. “That was the worst six months of our lives, though.”
“Because you’re so damn stubborn and wouldn’t fucking quit on your own due to some misguided devotion to a mother that treats you like hired help,” I grumbled.
“What happened there?” Bells asked. “And why are we on the subject of your mother? I thought we tried not to talk about her at all.”
Heidi explained about the new girl.
Bells threw his arm around her shoulders and said, “Bernice is pretty nice. I hope she can make it here. Creed seems to think that she’s going to die being here.”
“Her asthma is that bad?” I asked, unable to stop the curiosity from spilling from my mouth.
Dammit, I didn’t want to think about her at all.
“That, and she has anemia that keeps her cold all the damn time,” Bells answered. “The anemia is controlled with iron supplements and red meat. But according to Creed, she can barely tolerate the South’s winters. She’s going to die up here.”
I snorted. “No shit?”
“No shit. That’s why you’re seeing her wearing a sweatshirt with leggings and socks when the rest of us are sweating our balls off,” he said. “And apparently her asthma is bad. Everything affects it. Stress. Exercise. Allergens in the air.”
What a mess.
Maybe she shouldn’t have moved here.
“So what’s the bet that she lasts the winter?” Romina laughed.
“I’ll bet fifty that she’s gone by December first.” Heidi held up her hand. “I like her, but the weather…”
The rest of the crew made their bets, but it was me who said, “I’ll bet she sticks it out for the long haul.”
“What makes you say that?” Heidi asked.
“Because if I thought you were dead.” I leveled her with a look. “For even a day, and found out that you were in fact alive, I’d never want to let you out of my sight. Whether I was suffering or not.”
Seven
I am no longer shrinking myself to be digestible. You can choke.
—Bernice’s secret thoughts
Hux
Week One
I watched her from the top porch step as she stepped outside and shivered.
The Hubers watched her as well. Their new pastime was sitting there every morning so they could add commentary as she left each day.
Kurt, the youngest Huber, stood up and called out, “You need help, darlin’?”
Bernice didn’t glance up at him.
In fact, she ignored everything they did and said as she locked her front door using her keys and turned around to get to her truck.
She had a Yeti lunchbox in one hand, a coffee in the other, and her keys dangling from one finger.
When she got to the truck, she unlocked it and got inside.
I took a sip of my own coffee, catching the last dregs, before setting the empty cup on the porch railing and heading down the length of my walkway toward the road.
Glancing at my watch, I started off down the road at a slow jog.
Today I was running seven miles.
A short run for me.
I’d intended to start it earlier, but Hampton and Harvey had wanted to meet up early to get the weight room in since they were both off work for the day. Now, I was left running a couple of loops around town before heading home the same way I came in.
I heard the truck slow as it passed me and watched her wave at me.
I didn’t wave back.
But I did watch her until she disappeared out of sight.
All the while, I wondered if she was going to be able to stick it out like I thought, or take off.
Some deep, dark part of me wanted her to stick it out.
Why, I couldn’t tell you.
But I still wanted her to make it.
Week Two
I watched her through the side window of her bedroom.
I shouldn’t have been able to. She had curtains now, but she didn’t use them. Not on that window.
No one else besides me could see her from this particular direction.
Everyone else didn’t have west-facing windows on their house due to the harshness of the sun. I, however, had put in a window when I’d moved in so I could see out of my house from any angle.
Being in the Marines had taught me to watch my back, and I couldn’t do that if I had a blind angle.
With my lights off and my curtains parted, I could see everything through the window that led into her bedroom.
Today, she wasn’t doing anything fun—like getting undressed to take a shower. She was, however, still captivating.