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)
It’s a love song and it’s dark and … heartbreaking. I don’t recognize the voice, it’s tangled with emotion and veiled by sexy grit that is so not the Theodore Reed with whom I’ve become acquainted. The longer I listen, the more I feel like I’m intruding on something personal. Is he singing this for Kathryn? As I ease to my feet to leave and give him privacy, he stops singing. I halt and wince, feeling his eyes on me before I even turn.
“Hey,” he says. I feel zero hatred toward me at the moment because his “hey” is said in a friendly, un-Theo way.
It’s the first word we’ve shared since my breakdown in the bathroom the morning after we had sex. Lots of sex. I don’t know what scares me more—our uncontrolled physical attraction or our mutual need to not talk about it, at all, like it never happened, like it was … nothing.
“Hey. Sorry. I heard a voice so I came up to see what it was and then …” I shrug as if I’ve been caught doing something wrong.
Theo stands and pops one earbud out and then the other. I came to Savannah to see where it all began … where I began. But right now, I swear to God I flew to the other side of the pond just to see Theo in a dirty white T-shirt and faded blue jeans with holes in the knees, a red bandana wrapped around his head, and the most vulnerable look in his blue eyes. In this moment, I don’t even recognize him.
“You’re fine. Did you just get back?”
I nod. “Nolan asked me to lunch.”
He leans against the door frame, boots crossed at the ankle. “A date?”
I smile. It feels painful on my face and even more unbearable in my heart. “No. Just lunch. I’m quite possibly the most un-datable person on Tybee Island.”
“Because you’re engaged?”
I shake my head. “Your voice. I’m starting to think your lie is the truth. If I have…” I bite at my lip, wincing at my likely fate “…a little extra time, maybe I can be a groupie for your first concert.”
He pushes out a long breath. “Maybe we can play at your wedding reception.”
Ouch. This hurts. Does he have any idea how much pain I feel right now?
“The Amazon river has a species of freshwater dolphins. When they get excited they turn pink. Very human of them, don’t you think? Anyway, they have this mating ritual. The male throws a piece of driftwood around—which he can do because unlike other species of dolphins, they can turn their heads from side to side. If the female catches it, that means they will mate.”
Theo smirks.
“My dad told me that. He fed my insatiable hunger for knowledge more than anyone. Books. He gave me books. Some quite rare.”
I look up just as Theo quirks an eyebrow. “And he purchased these books from some little hole-in-the-wall bookstore that happened to have some hidden treasures?”
I grin. “Something like that.” No person has ever loved me like my dad. If he knew about the cancer, he would be here. He’d steal a thousand lives to save mine. “I don’t…” I shake my head “…I don’t know why certain random things pop into my head. But I can’t not say them. I’ve been so enamored with the unique, the crazy, the unexpected … I assume everyone around me surely finds this information as fascinating as I do. My dad did.” I furrow my brow, staring at my feet. “At least I think he did.”
“Dolphins …”
I glance up as Theo speaks.
“Driftwood … mating … fascinating.” He rubs the back of his neck, eyes on me, and a boyish grin claiming his mouth.
Who is this man? And where has he been? And why do I feel his hand reaching into my chest, trying to claim something he cannot have?
“Sharks …” He continues. “Sharks kill, on average, ten humans per year—worldwide. Humans … we are responsible for the death of over one hundred million sharks per year. So … statistically, I’m not going to die by the jaws of a shark.”
I did not know that. I’m equally saddened by the morbidity of his statement and excited that he has his own random-facts bank. In another life, Theodore Reed would make my heart do flips. A part of my soul would gravitate toward his. However, in this life, I will be satisfied with moments like this, stealing as many nows as I can. Surely, a third-generation thief can do that. Can’t I?
“I don’t have an eating disorder. Never have had one. I like cheese and cream sauces, anything fried, pints of lager, wine so old it’s a crime to drink it, and the occasional puff of a cigar because it reminds me of my grandfather. I obsess over large chocolate bunnies at Easter and sweets at Halloween. I never believed in Father Christmas, but it didn’t stop me from pretending that I did so my dad would attempt to bake biscuits to put by the tree. They were the worst thing I have ever tasted.