Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I didn’t remember the last time I spent a whole day just… hanging out with a woman. It was probably back in high school. But there was just something different about Carmen. It was like the rest of the world went blurry, and she came into sharp focus. And I didn’t want to look at anything else.
Because of how much I was noticing her, too, I could easily see how different she was here in Navesink Bank than she was back home. Everything about her had been tense, coiled, like everything within her was waiting for the ground to fall away beneath her feet. And, I guess, her life these past few years had been very much like that.
In Navesink Bank, though, despite being in pain, she was so much looser, lighter, more go-with-the-flow. She smiled easily. She laughed a lot. And that tension that seemed permanently etched around her eyes had eased. I almost couldn’t imagine how different she might be after a few weeks or months.
That wasn’t exactly in the cards, though.
And I was choosing to ignore how that knowledge made my stomach dip each time I thought about her leaving.
Because she had to leave.
She had a life.
And it wasn’t in Navesink Bank.
“God, that’s a view,” she said as we drove over the bridge, getting to the apex where you could look down and see the sprawling yellow sand beaches, the white of the waves crashing at the shore, and beyond that, the endless blue of the ocean.
“Right? There’s another bridge to get here that is usually less full of traffic, but I wouldn’t give up this view.”
“You come here a lot?”
“I run the pathway several days a week. Sometimes I’ll run on the sand, if it’s not too packed.”
“My idea of a beach day is planting my ass in a beach chair with an umbrella overhead and some illegal margaritas hidden in a stainless steel tumbler.”
“That sounds like a good time, too.”
Suddenly, that was all I was picturing: the two of us getting up at the crack of dawn so we could get a parking space before the lots closed, packing a lunch, then spending hours in beach chairs or on a blanket, then she could take a nap while I went for a run, and when I got back, both of us going into the water to cool down.
Maybe at some point in the future, there would be kids there with us…
Christ.
I needed to get a grip.
“Why are we parking across the street?” she asked as I cut the engine from where we were parked in the lot of an abandoned restaurant. Illegal, likely, but the cops were probably busy with all the tourists and teens creating chaos a little deeper in town. Besides, there was no chain across the opening to prevent it. I was shocked the bennies hadn’t found it and loaded in already.
“The main lots usually fill up by ten. You can sometimes get lucky to find a spot, but I don’t feel like fighting to find one when we could be out enjoying the day.”
“I can’t fault that logic,” she said, as I climbed out and moved around the hood to grab her door.
And thank fucking God my father raised me with manners.
Because if I hadn’t moved to the passenger side of the car, there would have been no cover when the tan car came out of nowhere, window down, something metal flashing in the sunlight.
Heart seizing, I grabbed Carmen, yanked her out, and pulled her forward toward the front wheel, hiding us behind the engine block just as the bullets started to fly, making metallic tings as they lodged in the body of the car.
A cry escaped Carmen as I turned us, pressing my own body against the tire and putting her in front of me, using my body as an extra barrier in case a bullet got through everything inside the car.
“You’re okay. It’s okay.” I was talking out of my ass. Nothing about this was okay. But letting her know I was panicked wasn’t going to help either. Though, to be fair, the source of that panic was her as well.
Because what the fuck? How many times could a woman be targeted and traumatized like this?
“Okay. It’s okay. It stopped.” I stroked her hair as she buried her face in my neck, her body shaking violently.
I didn’t dare pop up. Not yet.
It would be stupid for them to pause for any length of time on a busy street by the beach during tourist season. But they were clearly determined to hurt Carmen. If they saw this as their last chance, they might risk being seen if it meant they could lure us out and gun us down.
I could hardly hear anything over the hammering of my heartbeat, Carmen’s frantic breathing, and the wind that had picked up from over the water.