Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
So, I had needed to relax and fish with my horse, Juju, before I rode into hell.
After the staff meeting broke up, I had to look at the receipt totals, make sure payroll was ready to be direct-deposited to everyone on Friday like clockwork, and then, finally, I was ready to go. I offered to drive Josie to her friend’s house, where she would be staying for a week. On the way, I had to stop first at my place and grab my gear, then go to the stables and load up Juju, since I had to report to the Red in only a few hours.
“Aren’t you going to be tired?” Josie asked.
“Maybe I’ll sleep through the bullshit.”
“What?”
“Nothing,” I muttered because I didn’t want to start talking about my family.
She got in the truck with me, and I drove us to my house. As she stood in my living room, glancing around the bungalow, I got the feeling I was being judged.
“What?”
She coughed. “Oh, nothing.”
I realized I needed to throw away the five empty food containers on the coffee table. “Just spit it out.”
“You, um, live here alone, don’t you?”
“Yeah, why?”
She shook her head and gave me a big smile. “Just wondering.”
I rolled my eyes and left the room. She followed me into my bedroom after a minute, hovering in the doorway, afraid, it seemed, to trail me any farther.
“What?” I snapped.
Her eyes were wide and round as she caught her breath. “Do you smell that?”
“What?”
She peered around the corner. “Did you kill something in here?”
“You’re hysterical,” I said as I checked my clothes.
She put her hand over her nose and gagged.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“Are you kidding? You just sniffed that shirt before you stuffed it into that duffel bag.”
“Well, yeah,” I said absently, picking other clothes up off the floor. “I don’t know if it’s clean or not.”
She pointed at the chest of drawers in the corner. “Clean clothes go in there, boss.”
I grunted.
“Ohmygod!” she shrieked, which startled me, and I swung around to face her.
“What’s wrong now?”
“You’re a grown man, for crissakes!” She was horrified, going by her scrunched-up nose, furrowed brows, the look of disgust all over her face. “We walked by a perfectly good-looking washer and dryer. Do they not work?”
“They work.”
“Well, then?”
“I—”
“Your kitchen reeks too,” she said flatly. “This is your home, boss, not a dump.”
“I was fixin’ to—”
“Seriously, this house is so cute from the outside, but”—she grimaced so I couldn’t miss it—“the inside looks like ass.”
“I ain’t never here,” I defended myself.
She crossed her arms and tipped her head, staring up at me. “So how about this. Instead of playing musical houses for Josie, maybe I should stay here and get this place shipshape. You have that apartment over the garage that could be mine.”
“It’s full of tools and black-widow spiders.”
“Yes, well, the tools can go in the garage and the spiders can die.”
“Yeah, but—”
“There’s a shower and toilet up there, right?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I mean, we all saw it when you moved in.”
“I—”
“It’s a studio apartment, so enough room for one.”
“You don’t wanna live with your boss.”
“I do, actually,” she said pointedly. “I feel safe, and oh dear God, do you need me.”
“You—”
“Then it’s settled,” she announced cheerfully. “You go off and ride horses, I will make this place a home, and by the time you get back, it’ll be livable.”
“No, I—”
“And for rent I might even cook, but for certain I will work on the house and the backyard, that could be great if you, you know, mowed.”
“I can’t have a girl living with me. What would everyone say?”
“They would say, ‘Boy, that Glenn Holloway is a soft touch,’ but everyone needs a little sister to take care of them.”
I threw up my hands, got out the spare key for her, and told her not to drink my beer or eat all my leftovers.
The wince of apparent pain over the suggestion made me laugh.
“As if any of those leftovers will still be here when you get home.” She retched. “I’m getting a hazmat suit, and then I’m bleaching everything.”
I could only groan.
“And as far as me drinking your beer, I hate that stuff, so really, you don’t have to worry.”
“No boys over here ’cept the ones from work, you hear?”
The look I got, as though I had lost my mind, no one could have missed. Clearly, boys were not on her agenda at the moment.
I finished packing and told her she could sleep in the spare bedroom until the studio was cleaned out. “Get everyone to help you.”
“Like I’m doing all that by myself.”
“And seriously, kill the spiders first.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
She trailed after me to the kitchen, and when I opened the refrigerator to get a bottle of water, she gasped.
“It ain’t that bad.”
She pointed. “Is that green? Ohmygod, what is that?”