Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Something I thought had burned out when my marriage had ended stirs to life again as I watch her. The need to protect. To keep. To build something worth holding onto.
Roxie murmurs softly in her sleep and shifts closer to Chance, her fingers brushing against his chest. Her darker head bent close to his blonde one. Both of them look so damn serene.
Whatever she’s running from, whatever she thought she had to face, she won’t be doing it alone anymore. If she lets us help.
An idea creeps into my head like a thief in the night, rattling me a little because I know it’s wrong.
Ever since she’d arrived, we’d all been dying of curiosity to find out more about her. Chance had made us swear to stay out of it until she was ready to talk, but I was done waiting.
The need to protect her is too overwhelming, and the sense of impending doom if we lose her too great. But I can’t be ready if I don’t know what’s coming, so I creep out of bed, careful to extricate myself without jostling the mattress too much.
Once my feet hit the carpet, I pad quietly across the room and pull on a pair of underwear.
I don’t bother with more clothes, striding out into the hallway and up to my office. I fire up my computer and enter her name into the search bar when it pops up. Other than a few seemingly inactive profiles on social media, there’s nothing. No news articles featuring some atrocity she’d been involved in.
At least she wasn’t a wanted criminal. I’d even run a background check, but that came up empty too. By the looks of things, she’s a perfectly normal twenty-two-year-old who hails from New York and has never participated in any riots, protests, crimes, or suspicious activity whatsoever.
I shut down the search tab and lean back, rubbing a hand over my jaw. The lack of answers leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I hate not knowing, but I hate the idea of pushing her even more.
So instead of digging deeper, I decide to let it go for now and open another window, this time to a clothing store. I load up my cart with jeans, thermals, sweaters, and a few soft tees. Warm socks. A proper jacket for winter.
I hesitate at the perfume section, then click add to cart on something that claims to smell like vanilla and cedarwood. Simple, but soft. Like her.
Done in the office for now, I’m in the kitchen making coffee when Chance comes in, takes one look at me, and groans.
“What have you done?”
“What?” I blink innocently, but he only widens his eyes at me. “Fine. It’s nothing bad. I just ordered her some stuff. Clothes. Perfume. Just a few things she might need for the winter.”
He sighs and raises an eyebrow, but at least his shoulders relax and he crosses the kitchen to pull out another mug. “She might’ve preferred to pick out her own.”
“Maybe, but it’ll make her smile when it shows up and you’ve seen what she brought along. None of her clothes are going to hold up to the weather when the first storm rolls in.”
Chance shakes his head, the faintest smirk playing on his lips as he picks up the pot of freshly brewed coffee. “Yeah, you’re a real hardass, Boone. Keep scowling. Once that order gets here, not even that is going to fool her anymore.”
16
CHANCE
It’s been five weeks since Roxie showed up out of nowhere, soot streaking her face and secrets hidden in her eyes, and I still haven’t figured her out. I stare at her across the kitchen counter as she finishes her omelet, trying and failing to fit her into any kind of box.
She slipped into our lives like ice cream melting to fill the cracks, the sticky sugar gluing us together again but in a different way. Laughing with Dillon at things Boone and I don’t find funny. Arguing with Boone about his nonsensical organizational systems that have been driving me nuts for ages. Collecting the half-empty coffee mugs around the house like breadcrumbs for her to follow.
We really might’ve found the one with her, and we’ve all wanted that for the longest fucking time, but we still have no clue what brought her to Montana. Every time I look at her, I feel this undercurrent of tension she tries to hide.
It’s in the way her eyes track every sound. How her body goes still on the rare occasion a car passes outside.
She makes herself comfortable here, sure, but she hasn’t stopped running. And I can’t take it anymore.
So, I offer to take her into town with me for supplies this morning. Mostly as an excuse to get her alone, but also because I want to see how she handles being around people again.