Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 133878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Bay knew he’d fucked up the minute the words left his mouth. “I think you thought you saw something and it made an excellent excuse to get out of a place you weren’t comfortable with.”
“Brooke, you were a teenager, and you were driving off to meet boys an hour away from home.” Rachel seemed to be the voice of reason. “They didn’t have experience as parents then. They took things a little too far, but can you blame them?”
“I know what I saw,” Shane said stubbornly.
“I thought you saw a glint of metal,” Bay reminded him. “You didn’t come back and say you saw a bunch of guns. You said the crate lid came slightly off and you saw something metallic.”
“Well, they wouldn’t have been talking about offing us if I saw fencing materials,” Shane insisted.
“Oh, I can blame them.” Brooke ignored everything but her family. “I can blame them because the last time it happened I was twenty-four. I had come home for vacation and met a nice tourist, and guess who was at the Chili’s? Mel and Cass. I got to have skillet queso while discussing the mating habits of aliens, and guess who didn’t get to mate that day?”
Elisa was still filling out her report even as she walked back to them. “Are you sure nothing was stolen? Because they did a number on the cab. It looks like they went through everything.”
“I actually think they did steal something.” Bay nodded with a frown. Damn. He’d kind of hidden it from his brother so he didn’t have to share or be told he was getting pudgy. “I had a whole Snickers bar in the glove box and now it’s gone.”
He’d been looking forward to that Snickers.
Shane rolled his eyes. “I fed it to Maurice. No one stole it. Could we pay attention to the real problem we have?”
“You gave Maurice candy?” Maurice was the legendary moose who walked the woods around Bliss and made frequent appearances in town. There were a bunch of myths and legends about the big guy, including the one about how if someone offered Maurice food and he accepted it, that meant the person would become part of the town.
Now he had to get another Snickers bar and hunt down the moose because he wasn’t getting left out.
“He looked hungry,” Shane admitted. “Can we focus now?”
“I’m trying to help by getting the police report out of the way,” Bay argued.
“Why? So we can get insurance to fix the tires?” Shane asked with a long-suffering sigh. “In case you forgot, we don’t have insurance.”
“Twenty-four? She was twenty-four years old?” Rachel rounded on Rye. “You told me you only did it when she was a teenager and you didn’t want her taken advantage of.”
“Well, I still don’t want her taken advantage of. You don’t know how guys are, Rach. If you fall in bed with them too soon, they treat you like a…” Rye stopped, and his mouth went closed.
“Like a what?” Rachel’s tone had gone icy. “You should finish that sentence and then give me a timeline on how long it is before it’s okay to sleep with a man. I slept with Max on our first date. It wasn’t much of a date. He caught me swimming in the pond in the back field and we did it right then and there. Did that make me a whatever you were about to call your sister?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Rye lost his cold, calm demeanor, and his hands were out as though he could stave off the attack. “I just think she’s a bit naïve and needs someone to look out for her. You know she is practically a nun in New York. She doesn’t like the same things you do.”
“Like sex?” Rachel asked. “It’s okay for you and Max to knock me up about a hundred times, but your saintly sister is to be kept pure and innocent.” She sniffled and turned to Brooke. “Sweetie, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to…”
Brooke waved her off and then reached for her hand. “I know you’re not saying anything bad about me, but my brothers are. It’s okay for them to have a sex life but I should keep myself virginal or some shit until they find a good man for me to marry. And don’t think I didn’t figure out Stef was sending men you all approved of my way. Did he think I wanted to date some banker?”
“Yeah, but he was doing that because Brooke asked to be set up,” a new voice said. “I told him we needed to find someone a bit more artistic.”
And there was the owner of the last vehicle in the lot. Stef and Jen Talbot were here, and his humiliation was probably complete. Unless Trev or Jamie showed up.