Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“I didn’t mean to send that.”
“It was sent with Siri,” Dru pointed out.
“Was it?” Apollo looked. “Huh. Who did you call crazy then?”
I thought back to our day and… “I called her crazy when she tried to take my sandwich earlier.”
“Ah,” Apollo said. “Well, you can head back home. I think you might need to do damage control. We’ll be along tomorrow.”
I didn’t ask him twice.
I also didn’t bother to gather any of my things other than my phone.
I was halfway down the driveway to the SUV we’d rented when Dru called, “Tell her I want to meet her!”
I looked at her over my shoulder as I reached for the door handle of the SUV. “I have to convince her not to hate me first.”
I spent six solid hours battling snow and closed highways by the time I made it back home.
Home.
If you’d asked me six months ago, I would’ve said those words would never grace my lips when it came to Sawtooth. Home was Texas. Always would be.
Yet, here I was, thinking about it as the one place I wanted to be.
I pulled up into Mable’s yard and noted two vehicles that had to belong to Cody and Birdee.
I only knew they belonged to them due to the fact that the three women were now peering out the window staring at me in shock.
An alert sounded from my phone, and I absentmindedly hit the button that would read the message to me.
“One message from Apollo,” the electronic voice droned. “Read message?”
“Read message,” I said as I watched as the three women all scrambled backward.
“From Apollo,” the car read. “So do you want the good news or the bad news?”
The curtains pulled closed, and I forgot that I was going to listen to a message.
Not thinking much about anything but getting inside, I shut off the SUV and bailed out of the truck, my feet sinking into two feet of snow that immediately went into my boots.
I ignored it and the car as I slammed it closed, keys still inside.
I trudged up to the house, very aware that I could see the three women peeking through the curtains at me.
My lips were twitching by the time I started knocking at the door.
No one answered.
“I didn’t send that message!” I called out.
There was some movement from inside, but the door didn’t open.
“I was fighting with my sister about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” I called out. “I called her the creep. Not you! I swear to Christ.”
More movement, but still no door opening.
“I had your messages open because I’ve done nothing but stare at them for a week now.”
That got the door open.
Two angry women stared at me, but not the one that my eyes were so desperate to see.
“Why were you reading her messages and not replying?” Birdee asked.
“And why were you gone in the first place? Why leave without saying goodbye?” Cody pushed.
Both of them were swaying on their feet and looked like a swift wind would knock them over if they weren’t careful.
I couldn’t tell them everything, but I could say, “I’ll tell Mable everything. But I’m sorry, I can’t tell you.”
Birdee leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, overly loud, “We know you killed a guy.”
My lips quirked. “She told you.”
“No,” Birdee continued in her non-whisper. “She didn’t tell us. We found it on my mother’s computer.”
My brows rose.
“You did?” I wondered.
“We did,” Cody nodded, clutching onto the door handle as she started to sway when her head was no longer sitting still. “We saw everything. There’s not a single thing you’ve done that we don’t know about.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
“You don’t know everything,” Mable called out, looking at me through the windows but not coming to the door.
“We know enough to know that you were put in jail for a life sentence and you didn’t serve that life sentence,” Cody chirped. “We’re probably going to jail, too. So that’s okay.”
I frowned. “What?”
“We killed someone,” Birdee slurred, as she reached for the wine bottle that was dangling precariously from Cody’s hand. “It wasn’t our fault.”
My lips quirked at that ‘it wasn’t our fault.’
Everyone says that.
“But really, it wasn’t,” Mable called.
I looked at her and allowed my eyes to take her in.
She was wearing my sweatshirt.
She also had on my socks.
How did I know this? She was sitting on the back of the couch like a cat, her feet pressed between the couch and the glass window.
“How about you let me in so I can apologize profusely,” I begged.
She scrunched up her nose. “I don’t think that’ll work.”
“Why won’t it?” I asked.
“Because we’re just too different,” she called out. “You’re you. So handsome and you fit in at the country club. And I’m a boring woman that thinks mascara makes my eyes stick together.”
“You could never wear makeup again, and I’d still want you, Mable,” I pointed out. “I didn’t fall in love with the makeup. I fell in love with the woman. What your makeup looks like is beyond me. You’re beautiful, whether you’re fully decked out or getting out of the shower with not a stitch of eyeliner or mascara or whatever the fuck else women put on their face.”