Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107766 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
She exhaled. “Not right now. I’m too busy getting this place fixed up. And…” She dropped his gaze, her eyes moving to the cabinets behind him. “If it doesn’t work out here and I have to move back into an apartment, it would make things more difficult finding a place that takes pets.”
“I have no doubt you’ll make it work here if you want to.”
She met his eyes again, deciding she was not going to try to sugarcoat her circumstances. “I’m doing the best I can, Detective—”
“Zach.”
She lifted her chin. “Zach. I’m doing the best I can, but the truth of the matter is that I might be in over my head. I might not have what it takes to make this work.” She’d been thinking about that all afternoon and into the evening, wondering if it would really be the worst thing in the world if she sold the damn place to Archie, wiped her hands of it, and moved back to Cincinnati into a small apartment where some landlord took care of leaky roofs, and plumbing problems, and all the rest of it too. She could call the companies she’d done transcribing for, start working from home again. It’d been joyless work, but it’d paid the bills and even more importantly, perhaps, it’d kept her mind occupied.
“Josie, your life was…derailed nine years ago in the worst possible way, and I’m sure that some days, maybe lots of days, you feel like you’re just starting out, whereas others your age are settling into their lives. Their careers.” The way he was looking at her was so serious, so earnest, it made her heart swell. “But you have more grit, more courage, and more determination than anyone else I know. So yeah, I have no doubt you’ll make it work here if you want to,” he repeated.
She gave her head a small shake, but she couldn’t deny that his words of encouragement had warmed her, buoyed her, sent a jolt of that determination he said she had straight to her gut. The truth was, growing up, no one had ever expressed that type of passionate belief in her. And funnily enough, she’d finally found what no one else had given her—inner strength—in the bowels of hell as she’d waited to die. Afterward, her aunt had helped her hold on to what she’d grasped with her bare fingertips in that dank warehouse. At least for a while. But now that she was gone, Josie still struggled to hold on to what she’d fought so mightily for. She could hardly express what his words meant to her. “Thank you, Det—Zach, but—”
“No buts.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I want to tell you something.” He took a sip of his tea as she waited to hear what he had to say. He looked slightly apprehensive suddenly and it made her nervous. “Eight years ago, when I was just a rookie cop, I was assigned to guard your hospital room door.”
“Oh,” she breathed. She looked away, the memory of that day washing through her.
The sudden freedom.
The hope.
The desperation.
The clawing grief.
The trauma.
Snatches of her arrival at the hospital came back to her right then, and she almost groaned aloud at the overwhelming flood of emotions. But she took a deep breath, looking up into the eyes of the man who had guarded her safety that night and was guarding her safety now. Despite the emotional onslaught, a smile tugged at her mouth. “My guardian,” she murmured.
He smiled, and she swore two spots of color appeared beneath the bronzed skin of his cheekbones. “Lots of good people had your back that day. But, Josie, you’re the one who survived, who made it out, and you should never cease giving yourself the credit you deserve. You amaze me.”
Her chest flooded with warmth, but she felt awkward too, undeserving of such high praise. She’d done what she had to do, yes, but anyone else would have done the same, given similar opportunities in that harrowing situation. And the fact remained, she hadn’t managed to do the one thing that truly mattered: she hadn’t saved her child. She hadn’t kept her promise to him. Her baby boy.
At least not yet.
“Thank you, Zach.”
He regarded her. “I heard your garage sale didn’t go so well today.”
She cringed internally. She hated that the man who’d just praised her and made her feel proud knew of her failure. “Not exactly. Did Detective Keene tell you about the articles pinned next to my flyers?” She felt the shame of that moment she’d first seen the ad hung up in the grocery store, the realization of what it was.
“Yeah. Think it was your cousin who did that?”
“It’s my best guess. Even if someone else put that rat in my house to try to scare me or to…I don’t know, send a message, no one has reason to try to run me out of this community except Archie.”