Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“There are a lot of people already grumbling about a doctor in town,” Mable mused. “What are we going to do?”
I pinched Odin.
He glared.
I pinched him again.
He sighed.
“Odin’s going to do it.”
Everyone paused.
But it was Denver who said, “You’re what?”
Everyone started talking at once.
Surprise was the most common reaction.
But it was Mable who said, “This is fantastic. Odin, will you deliver my child?”
Silence.
Odin frowned. “I don’t think…”
“Of course he will.” I slapped my hand over his mouth. “Just keep your men in line. Odin’s a fucking professional.”
Odin snorted behind my hand.
Romeo grumbled something dark that sounded like “over my dead body.”
“Do you realize that the closest town to here is over an hour and a half away?” she asked. “And sure, there are other doctors that could probably deliver us at the hospital, but I want an established doctor here.”
More grumbling.
“Maybe we can convince an OB to move here…” Odin said.
“There is an OB here,” Mable grumbled. “But she’s not taking any more patients. I’ve tried.”
“Bummer,” I murmured.
Sorcha laughed. “This should be a lot of fun.”
Thirty
Living with you is like being in jail. I never know when I’m going to be fucked or shanked.
—Odin to Constance
Constance
I was cold.
As in, freezing my hands off, about to go into shock cold.
And not because of getting lost or anything.
But because I couldn’t move.
Why couldn’t I move?
Because when I’d been hiking earlier, we’d gone off course again. Peanut had taken me to a stream with water, and I’d gotten the most up close and personal photos of a family of owls that I’d ever had the chance of seeing.
It was the absolute cutest thing in the world.
As I took shot after shot, Peanut curled into my side.
Possum watched from a branch above our heads, watching the owls like they were about to commit murder.
Possum and Peanut got along as well as could be expected now.
But Possum was still very protective of me.
Oh, and he hated Odin.
It was quite hilarious to see the two of them together. Possum swooped down low over Odin’s head, and Odin would try to catch him.
Neither ever accomplished their goals.
But it was cute to watch, nonetheless.
Peanut went alert and turned.
I did, too, hoping there was no stalking wolf behind me thinking I was fresh meat.
There wasn’t anything, but it did remind me that it was time to go.
I was going to be late if I didn’t leave now.
Wendy needed to be picked up in an hour and forty-five minutes, and I was forty minutes from the trailhead as well as thirty minutes from her school. And, because I was a worrier, I had to make sure I got there a full twenty minutes early, just in case. No way was my baby sitting there waiting for me to pick her up.
I’d just started down the bumpy trail, Possum in the sky above me and Peanut on his leash beside me, taking photos of the surrounding landscape as I did.
I was about halfway down the trail when I heard it.
Yelling.
I paused and tried to listen, but all it sounded like to me was panicked voices.
I hurried down the switchbacks, my camera bumping me in the back as I moved.
I’d have a bruise tomorrow but…
I came around a corner and came to an abrupt halt.
“You should have listened to me, Mother!”
Eustace.
What the hell was he doing out of jail?
“I’m not listening to a nutcase like you!” she snarled.
I crouched down low behind a spruce, hoping that the leafy branches covered in snow would block me from their sight.
It did, but barely.
Peanut curled into my side, not understanding what was going on.
The sweet, spastic lug.
“Shhh,” I whispered. “You have to be quiet.”
I looked at my watch and realized that I’d made worse time than I thought, and I only had an hour and ten minutes until I needed to get Wendy.
But there was no way to get down this mountain the rest of the way without going straight through the two of them.
I shifted from foot to foot, indecision making me hesitate.
But before I could make any decisions, Eustace shoved his mother.
She went ass over tea kettle right off the side of the mountain.
Eustace snorted. “Fuck you.”
Then he marched down the mountain, disappearing into the trees.
I waited quite a long time to make sure that he wasn’t going to come back.
I gave it a solid ten minutes before I rushed to the side of the mountain where she disappeared, fully expecting to see her broken body over the ledge.
What I saw when I got there were two really big eyes that were staring at me pleadingly.
“Are you okay?” I rushed out.
“This branch is going to break,” she told me. “It’s already pulled halfway out of the ground.”
I surveyed the branch and saw that she was right.
The tree she was holding on to wasn’t going to hold with her weight on it.