Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“I have riding lessons with Fox.”
Furi blinked up at him.
The heat in his eyes gave way to disbelief so absolute Syn almost smiled.
“Are you insane?”
“Good morning to you too.”
Furi’s brows rose. “You can barely hold a Harley between your legs and ride a motorcycle. How are you gonna ride a twelve-hundred-pound animal?”
Syn’s mouth twitched. “Maybe I just had a shitty teacher.”
Furi glared at him before he shoved him in the shoulder. “I know your ass didn’t just say that.”
Syn climbed out of bed before he could lose whatever thin hold he had on himself. He washed up, brushed his teeth, and got dressed in jeans, a plain white T-shirt, and a pair of worn boots Fox had loaned him.
Furi stayed sprawled in bed gazing at him with one tattooed arm tucked behind his head, a toned leg bent and splayed open on top of the quilt in obvious invitation.
Syn glanced over. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Mmhmm.” Furi’s eyes moved over him slowly. “I’m just enjoying the view before you get on a horse, get bucked off, and I have to spend the next two weeks messaging your hurt back.”
Syn pulled the shirt down over his stomach. “I love how much confidence you have in me.”
Furi’s expression shifted, a flicker of humor in his eyes.
“Come down when you’re ready,” he said.
Furi nodded before he turned over and buried his face in Syn’s pillow.
Syn forced himself to walk out before he climbed right back into that bed and told Fox and his riding lessons to go to hell.
Noise reached him halfway down the stairs.
Voices overlapping, drawers opening, plates clattering, Amelia’s sharp command slicing through male nonsense, Bull’s low rumble, Fox laughing at Walker bitching out the interim sheriff, and the game show on the little kitchen television blaring loud enough to qualify as another family member.
Syn smiled, shaking his head, wondering what it’d be like to wake up to this every day at the crack of dawn.
Umm, no thanks.
Fox was insane.
The kitchen was alive and pulsing with fresh-brewed, strong coffee. Plates were loaded with bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, fluffy scrambled eggs, and biscuits split open and glistening with butter.
Fox and Bull better be glad they did manual labor all day, otherwise they’d each be three hundred pounds.
“Morning,” he said gruffly.
Every head turned.
Fox and Bull watched him first, grinning like fools.
Syn stopped beside the coffee pot and pointed at them without turning all the way around. “Shut up.”
Fox grinned wider. “I didn’t say a word.”
“But you’re thinking it.”
Syn filled his mug so full it nearly kissed the rim, then took a long drink before fixing himself a plate. He piled all the fixings on and sat across from Dale and Rid, who were already in the middle of an argument.
“I’m telling you, I’m booked solid,” Rid said, stabbing at his eggs with his fork. “Morning stall rotations, I got a vet check on Grover, tack inventory due by one, and you want me to help move hay?”
Dale didn’t appear impressed. “You’re the stable’s manager. The hay is for the goddamn animals in the stable.”
Rid opened his mouth, closed it, then pointed his fork at his boyfriend. “That is manipulative wordplay. Get some of the yard hands to move it.”
Syn hid a smile behind his coffee.
At the end of the breakfast bar, Walker sat with his actual newspaper spread open. He was a strong man gone older, with a silver beard, a few wisps on his head, brown skin weathered from years of sun, and hands that looked as if they’d built half the buildings on the property.
He flipped a page with a snap and jabbed one thick finger at an article as if it’d offended him.
“Now see,” Walker muttered, lowering the newspaper with a disgusted flick of his wrist, “this is what I don’t understand. Interim sheriff been sitting in that office collecting a check but ain’t done a damn thing.”
Syn frowned.
Walker slapped the paper with the back of his hand. “Is there not one qualified man in this county willing to apply for this job?”
Sheriff.
A badge without the constant beat of a war drum.
A county that needed help.
Syn set his fork down slowly, not ready to admit how hard that thought had just hit him.
“Pick the B, girl,” Amelia shouted at the game show. “Ain’t no word got two Qs in it like that. Pick the B.”
The contestant picked a Q.
Amelia threw both hands up. “Ugh!”
Bull poured coffee into a thermos and bitched about there not being enough vanilla creamer, Fox kept stealing bacon from Walker’s plate while he was consumed with the news. Dale wouldn’t stop trying to assign Rid extra tasks that he continued rejecting, and Syn sat there eating the best breakfast he’d ever had while the room roared around him.
Fox turned his attention on him. “You ready for your lesson?”