Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 89519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
“So do you live in Arizona year-round?”
Flip.
I sigh, louder this time. “I’m being incredibly generous by not calling the cops on you and filing a report.”
The report: Too hot to handle. Too stubborn to leave.
He flips a page.
“Do you talk? Is that part of the knee injury?”
Honestly, it’s impressive. I’ve never met anyone so aggressively uninterested in conversation that it borders on being fascinating.
With a dramatic exhale that’s mostly for me, I grab the blanket off the couch and stalk over to the sliding glass door on the far side of the room, throwing it around my shoulders like a cape of resignation.
The sun’s starting to dip below the edge of the trees, casting this syrupy orange glow over the water. One of those sunsets that looks fake, like someone turned up the saturation on the entire forest.
It’s gorgeous.
I slide the door open and step outside onto the deck, the cool wood pressing against my bare feet as I pull the blanket tighter around me. Breathing in deeply, I will my brain to stop spinning, inhaling the campfire from the resort, a smell I’m all too familiar with, having grown up in a resort town.
Out here, it’s only me and the water and the kind of quiet you could lose yourself in.
Or find yourself in.
I settle into one of the deck chairs, tucking my knees up and resting my chin on them, watching the orange melt into pink and then purple across the lake. The surface glows like glass, and for a second, everything is calm, including my inner thoughts.
Mostly.
This is what Lucy meant when she said I needed to “reset.” Fewer people. Less noise. Less constantly trying to prove I have it all under control when I absolutely do not.
The sky keeps changing. The bugs start humming. My ears strain as I listen for the door of the cottage to open, but so far, nothing. Of course not.
Maverick whatever-his-last-name-is probably doesn’t do sunsets. Or feelings. Or human connection.
I roll my eyes at the horizon and pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders, settling deeper into the chair as the breeze picks up. It’s nice, though. Chilly, but nice. And for the first time all day, I feel like I’m not on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
Not gonna lie, today has been stressful. Seeing a mountain of a man standing over me earlier when I’d woken from the hammock not only scared the ever-loving shit out of me—but for a brief second, I genuinely thought I was about to die.
Like, this is it. This is how it ends.
This is how I—
Click.
I freeze.
The soft slide of the door opening behind me cuts through the quiet like a dropped pin in a library.
I don’t turn around. I don’t breathe. Because now I’m very aware that the caveman has exited the cave. And I swear, if he ruins my moment with some kind of smug, sarcastic—
“You’re gonna get eaten alive out here.”
So? Pfft. What does he care? He hasn’t cared about a single thing I’ve said all afternoon—why start now?
“You’re gonna get eaten alive out here,” he says again, as if I hadn’t heard him the first damn time, that low rumble of his sounding mildly amused.
“Mosquitoes are the least tragic part of my day.” I don’t turn around. “I’ll take my chances.”
Behind me, the deck creaks under his weight as he lowers himself into the chair beside mine. Not directly next to me, thank God, but close enough that I can feel the gravity of him. He radiates heat and intensity in ways the men of Star Lake do not. The guys back home mostly wear khakis, sell insurance, and talk about trout season, blech.
Annoying.
“Suit yourself,” he grumbles, settling in with a grunt. “I read somewhere mosquitoes like sweet blood.”
“Oh yeah? Where’d you read that?”
“Magazine.”
I scoff.
He turns his head so I can catch the smirk curling at the edge of his mouth. “Sounds legit, though, doesn’t it?”
“Um—no.” It most certainly does not.
“You wound me,” he says, moving the ice pack against his knee to a new spot. “Here I am, offering mosquito trivia, and all I get is attitude.”
I roll my eyes again, this time at him. “You also kicked me out of the only bed. You don’t get points for bug facts. This is war.”
War.
That’s what this is, and I am not losing.
“I hate to break it to you, Annabelle, but possession is nine-tenths of the law, and I was here first. You’re lucky I don’t call the cops for breaking in entering.”
“It’s breaking and entering,” I correct. Then I can’t resist adding, “You know, most hostages develop sympathy for their captors over time. Stockholm syndrome, it’s called.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “You think I’m your captor?”
“Well, I didn’t rent this place intending to share it with a linebacker and an insufferable personality, so yes. I think I qualify.”