Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 111959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Josephine twisted around to face Wells, sucking in a breath over the murder spelled out in his eyes. “Hey. Hey, hey, hey.” She struggled to get her feet back on the ground for leverage and finally succeeded, grabbing the sides of his face. “You’re letting him get in your head. That’s exactly what he wanted.”
“He disrespected you, Josephine.”
“That says more about him than it does about us, doesn’t it?”
A muscle popped repeatedly in his cheek. “I can’t let it stand.”
“No, you can’t. So beat him on the golf course.”
Wells continued to pin Calhoun with a death stare over her shoulder. “But I won’t get to hear any of his bones snapping that way.”
Calhoun let out a strangled cough.
An official approached hesitantly from her left. “Is everything all right over here?”
“Yes,” Josephine said, firmly.
“No,” growled Wells.
Josephine gave the official the sweetest smile she could muster, considering she was holding back a bull from charging at a red flag. “We just need a minute.”
“One minute to tee time, folks.”
“We’ll be ready,” she assured the official, before refocusing on Wells. “Listen to me. If that smarmy, self-important jackass is trying to rattle you, we must be doing something right.”
“I can hear you,” Calhoun complained.
“That was the plan,” she called. Then, quietly, to Wells, she said, “Block out the noise. It’s just you and me out here.”
That wasn’t remotely true. In the few minutes they’d been standing there, getting ready to begin their round, a crowd the size of a small army had amassed. Commentators were chirping into microphones, spectators were shouting for Wells. For her. If she listened hard, she could hear the buzz of a drone overhead, no doubt capturing a bird’s-eye view of the course for the television audience. It was total and complete mayhem.
For golf.
“I don’t like backing down from a fight,” he said. “You know that.”
“This one isn’t worthwhile.”
“I strongly disagree.”
Getting nowhere, she had no choice but to play her final card. “Are you forgetting about our wager?” she whispered.
She’d never seen a car hit a brick wall at a hundred miles an hour, but she suspected it looked something like Wells reacting to her reminder. The momentum of his ire came to a screeching halt. “I’ve decided to wait until we’ve played eighteen holes to kill him,” he said briskly.
“That’s all anyone can ask for,” Josephine said on a relieved exhale.
Wells held out a hand for his driver and she laid the club across his palm, smiling to herself as Calhoun snorted and swaggered back to his own camp.
One crisis down.
How many more to go?
* * *
One. One crisis to go, it turned out.
And it happened on the final hole.
Wells remained steady throughout the morning, managing to maintain his position on the leaderboard. Fifteenth place. To Josephine, they might as well have been in first.
All he needed to do was make par on the eighteenth hole and Wells would bank thirty thousand dollars. Ten percent of that would go to Josephine. Three thousand dollars. On top of the Under Armour sponsorship money. It was more money than she’d ever had at one time. But at that very moment, the imminent hope of rebuilding the Golden Tee and restoring her health insurance came second to Wells getting his professional footing back. Every time he swung the club, he did it with a little more of his old finesse.
The crowd had doubled since the morning—and they were excited.
She could practically hear her parents freaking out on the couch at home.
That being said, Josephine was allowing herself to anticipate the changes she would make to the family shop. The shine of new hardwood flooring, the wall of reference books, the technology she would incorporate to modernize the space. How she would take it from a necessary stop for visitors to an experience that would keep them coming back.
She’d dream more later, though.
Right here and now, she was focused on Wells. Finishing the day off strong.
Calhoun was sulking over in the rough after an average round, waiting for Wells to take his putt. Meanwhile, Josephine stood on the green of the final hole. One putt. A single putt and they could go home winners, at least in her book.
But Wells was . . . frozen.
They’d conferred on yardage, angle, wind speed. And he’d just . . . stopped.
“What’s wrong?”
He rubbed the center of his forehead and blinked at the ball. “What happens if I miss this?”
“You can’t think like that.”
“What is the difference in the payout if I miss?” He closed his eyes. “God, I don’t want to fuck this up for us, belle.”
“You won’t.” She handed him the putter. “Visualize the shot.”
“That’s the thing—I can’t.”
“Okay. Let’s say you could visualize the shot. What would it look like?”
His head turned slowly. “Where in God’s name do you come up with this shit?”
She grinned. “It’s good, isn’t it?”