Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
His whimpering, as well as his excitement, was enough to cause tears to spring to my eyes.
“God, Gert,” I groaned. “I’ve missed you so much.”
He was literally shaking with excitement in my arms, and I closed my eyes, burying my face into the scruff of his neck like I’d done so many times before.
“Gertie, heel.”
Gertie didn’t even react to the woman’s voice, and I chose to leave without saying another thing to her.
“This isn’t over!”
I ignored that, too.
It was over, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
Not only was Gertie obviously saying that he was mine, but I also now had possession of him.
There was not a damn thing in the world she could do about it.
Chapter 1
Beware of chickens. They can be real peckers.
-Wall sign
Kennedy
Three months later
The city of Hostel, Texas was hopping.
We weren’t in New Orleans, but we were in a town that celebrated the holiday just as hard as New Orleans did, though to a much smaller scale due to the town’s size. When it was time for Mardi Gras, we went from a quaint little farming town with barely any excitement to crazy extremes.
Beginning in early January through Fat Tuesday, it was a nonstop party.
Today was no different.
With Mardi Gras only a few days away, Hostel was in full party prep mode.
Even the feed store—one of the few places in town besides the library, the Wal-Mart, and the burger joint that I practically lived at—was celebrating.
I loaded one more bag of feed onto my flatbed cart, and then rolled it up to the register, very conscious of how difficult the cart was to stop.
In fact, I was concentrating so intently on the progression of my load that I didn’t see the other cart coming from the aisle beside me until I was lying flat on the floor, my flatbed cart now four feet in front of me and not stopping.
I groaned and pushed myself up to a sitting position, and then looked at the cart that was pushed into my path.
It was manned by a child. A four or five-year-old at most.
I grimaced and looked away from the little boy just in time to see my very heavy cart, loaded down with four bags of chicken feed and two bags of all-feed, smack straight into the back of a man’s legs.
He cursed and whipped his head around to look at the offending object, only to turn his eyes even further toward me.
The moment that those eyes, steel blue and so intense, landed on me, the little breath I’d been able to catch left my body in an audible whoosh.
“You okay?”
I blinked.
Then nodded, not trusting myself to say a word.
He held his finger up to the cashier and walked toward me, shooting the kid, who was trying to move forward with his cart despite me still being in his path, a glare before offering me his hand.
He had tattoos on his knuckles.
Actually, he had tattoos on his arm that extended to his knuckles, but still, he had tattoos on his knuckles.
I took the hand.
Mine so white compared to his tanned and tattooed one.
Effortlessly he lifted me to my feet and stared at me.
“You have a cut,” he pointed to my jaw, or somewhere near it since I couldn’t quite see.
Then he pulled out a fucking handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against my face.
I brought my hand up and placed it on the handkerchief, which happened to still be in his hand, and said, “Thank you.”
My words were so low that even I barely heard them, but he did and nodded as he stepped back.
When the kid tried to hit us with his cart again, and the man whipped his head to the side and growled, “Stop that.”
The kid froze, and a woman who’d obviously not been paying attention to her child said, “Evander, I’m so sorry!”
The man turned to her.
“Your son just knocked this woman flat on her ass,” he said none too gently. “Watch that kid of yours.”
The woman flushed and looked at me guiltily, but not because she felt bad. It was obvious that she didn’t care if her child knocked me down or not. What she cared about was that this Evander had made her look bad in front of the entire feed store.
“I’m sorry,” she lied.
I shrugged. “It’s okay. Are you okay?”
Evander looked at me, then nodded. “Fine.”
Then he walked away, finally giving me the chance to take him in fully.
He was tall with jet black hair that was clipped closely to his scalp. He had to be at least six-foot-five or six. He had on a black t-shirt that had Hail Auto Recovery written on it and was so tight that I could see every single dip and indention that his muscles made beneath the shirt. He had on dark washed blue jeans that looked stained and dirty from a day full of work, and he had black motorcycle boots that looked damn near as worn out as the pants covering his large feet.