Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
The waitress clears her throat. “I can get you a garden salad, no meat or cheese.”
“She’ll take it.” He continues to glare at me.
“Ranch, French, Italian, Caesar, or Balsamic dressing?”
“No dressing … just bring extra lemon.” I hand her my menu.
Theo focuses out the window. His jaw remains clenched. “You look like shit.”
I laugh. “Why thank you. Day. Made.”
“If I find you passed out, when I find you passed out, I’m not calling for an ambulance. If you want to kill yourself, a gun would be a helluva lot easier.”
“You think I want to die?”
He looks at me, expressionless.
“Fair enough.” I shrug. “But for the record, if I find you passed out, I will call for an ambulance, check for a pulse, and administer CPR if necessary.”
“And if I put a bullet in my head?”
The waitress serves our drinks. I squeeze my lemon wedges into my water. “Would you? Would you put a bullet in your brain?”
He takes a swig of his iced tea then licks his lips. “If I wanted to die, yes, I’d put a bullet in my head.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t just swim with the sharks every morning knowing that statistically one day you’ll be breakfast?”
He grunts. As usual, my words only aggravate him more.
“Do you own a gun?”
“Why?” He strokes his beard while shooting me a beady-eyed glare.
“I’ll make you a deal. If you show me where it is, and how to use it, I promise if the day ever comes that I want to die, I will place it at my temple and pull the trigger. Deal?”
Theo doesn’t make the deal. In fact, he doesn’t say another word for the rest of our lunch. He might be my unsolvable mystery and when he studies me like he has been today, I think I may be his, too. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Theodore Reed cares about me. I know better.
“Oh, shit!” I grab the back of Theo’s shirt as we exit the café.
“What?”
“That’s Harold Moore and a woman who is not his wife,” I whisper, peeking around Theo’s body like I have some reason to hide.
I’m not the one pressing a younger woman up against my black Range Rover, sticking my tongue down her throat and my hand up her shirt. His charcoal suit looks designer too. Not the charity shop getup he wore the day I met him.
“What’s your point?” Theo continues to the truck as I shuffle behind him, like he’s shielding me from gunfire.
I hop in and shut the door. “What’s my point? Nolan’s dad is cheating on his mum. That’s my point.”
“That’s not news around here.” He backs out and waves, yes waves, at Harold as we pull out of the car park. Harold waves back like he’s not at all trying to hide his affair.
“Does Nolan know?” I think back to Nolan’s comment about unconventional marriage.
Theo chuckles. It’s uncharacteristic of him, and normally I would find it endearing, but he’s laughing about an affair. “Yes. He knows. Everyone knows … except Nellie.”
I open my mouth then clamp it shut and repeat it several times before words find their way out. “Why doesn’t he leave her? Why make a fool of her?”
He gives me a quick glance with a quirked eyebrow. “You’ve met Nellie. Right?”
“Yes. She’s … she’s … a little …”
“Crazy.”
“I was going to say simplistic. It doesn’t mean she deserves to be cheated on.”
“No, she’s crazy, and they have a doctor’s diagnosis that confirmed it.”
“Oh … well, what happened?”
He shrugs. “Don’t’ know. Don’t care. Nolan had some accident. She lost her shit. The family is richer than God, but she doesn’t have any clue as to her social status. Before she lost it, she was the epitome of a southern, uppity rich bitch. Big parties, charity events … they own half of Savannah and one of the most lucrative horse ranches in Kentucky. Now, she’s the equivalent of a child.”
“Why isn’t she someplace receiving special care?”
“Rich people don’t live in institutions.”
“It makes no sense. He dresses in secondhand clothes when he’s with her … but …” I shake my head. “He’s cheating on her. Why stay?”
“The money is all Nellie’s. If anything happens to her, everything goes to Nolan. The old fucker just wants the life. Nellie’s content, so Nolan’s content. Harold gets to stay. End of story.”
“So, Harold lives two lives? Crazy-dressing husband to Nellie one minute and rich businessman shagging younger women the next?”
“Yup.”
I’m buzzing inside, trying to play it cool like I’m not dying, seriously dying to solve this mystery. “Just like that? Nolan has an accident and Nellie goes mad? How does that make any sense?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
We park in front of the hardware shop, and he jumps out, not waiting for me and my ten-second delay from my head stuck in detective overdrive.