Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 599(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Aggie’s hands go to her hips. “Do I look like a fort, trying to squeeze every last penny out of people? Don’t answer that.”
“No, ma’am,” Jonah says politely.
“Sometimes doing the right thing doesn’t involve money or trading or whatever.” Aggie waves a hand in the air. “When I was a little girl, I didn’t have a lot of kids my age who lived nearby. I grew up on a farm, and I was the only kid. My dog was my best friend. And I’m thinking maybe others need a best friend, too.”
“A dog is really valuable.” He never stops petting the puppy in his hands. “I just worry someone is going to take advantage of a kid that gets a dog from you.”
“Well, you’ll just have to have Thess get on their asses. I know that young lady won’t let anyone steal a dog from a kid. She’s a good sort, and you can tell her I said that. You can tell your dad that, too.”
Oh lord. “Aggie.”
“I’m just saying. She’d probably make a good stepmom.”
“Aggie.”
“Just pointing things out,” Aggie says cheerfully. “Some men don’t know what’s in front of their faces until it bites their nose off. Your daddy’s a busy man, but tell him to make sure he ain’t so busy he doesn’t think about himself…or what’s right in front of his nose.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jonah replies, his mouth twitching with amusement. “I’ll be sure to pass it on.”
“As for the puppies, I’m just speculating out loud. No one’s getting a dog until you pick out which one you want anyhow. And maybe if it’s dangerous for people to receive them from us, they’ll have to receive them from, say, that Lord Azar that runs the fort. I bet if he handed them out to the people we said, they wouldn’t steal from them.”
“Everyone’s terrified of him,” Jonah agrees.
“See? Perfect.”
I wince inwardly, because I’m not sure we want to get the head of the fort involved in anything involving puppies. The drakoni are afraid of nothing, but they’re wary the moment his name comes up. That makes me antsy. “We can talk with Gwen and Vaan about it,” I say. “They’ll let us know if it’s a good idea or not.”
“Plenty of time before anything has to be decided,” says Aggie. “Plenty of time. The dogs still look like blobs anyhow. Cute blobs, but blobs. You want to hold another one yet, Jonah?”
“Not just yet,” says Jonah, and continues to gently pet the sleeping puppy in his arms.
CHAPTER 107
DAKOTA
We spend a lovely day with Jonah visiting the bookstore we call home. A lot of it is spent around the puppies, of course. Jonah gets time to hug and hold each one, but he keeps going back to Sleepy, and I suspect that even if Sleepy turns out to be as dumb as a rock, it’s going to end up his dog anyhow. He’s in love with that little dog already.
Murr feeds everyone with a fresh haunch of deer, and I take some of the dried meat and put it in a plastic container for Jonah to take back home to his dad. Murr, Aggie and Jonah sit by the fire and pet cats and talk about what it’s like at the fort. Lord Azar, the Salorian everyone is so wary of, has been there for only the last year or two, but he’s made a lot of changes, and most of them for the better. Even Jonah’s father is impressed. “It’s really not that bad,” Jonah tells us. “I think if you guys lived there, you’d like it. It’s easier than being on your own.”
“Maybe so,” is all I say, just to be polite. Truth be told, I’m thinking of the shipping container that he and his father live in, and how cramped and stuffy it is. It’s clean and tidy and they have furniture, but I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life living in a metal box like that. Other people in the fort were living in storage sheds, or an old gas station, and I even saw a broken-down yellow school bus that looked as if it was being lived in. It might be easier, but it doesn’t scream “home” to me.
Then again, neither does a bookstore.
The realization that I don’t consider the bookstore home is a little surprising to me. For so long, our lives have been lived day to day, never thinking further ahead than next week, or even the next meal. A bookstore with a mostly intact roof is an incredible place to hide out, but the parking lot is more asphalt than dirt, the floor is hard, and the building drafty. I’m perfectly happy to live here for the next season, or even the next year. But ten years from now? Do I still want to be living on the floor in an abandoned bookstore and trying to grow tomatoes in a pothole?