Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 18063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 90(@200wpm)___ 72(@250wpm)___ 60(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18063 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 90(@200wpm)___ 72(@250wpm)___ 60(@300wpm)
2
As I drove, as always happened, I started thinking about the safety of the route we were taking and the logistics once we arrived, and that I could really go for a hamburger, and so I didn’t realize for a moment that Dr. Butler was talking to me until the back of my seat was kicked.
“What?” I snarled at Hannah.
“You can ignore me all you want, but don’t be rude,” she scolded, arms crossed, glaring at me when I checked the rearview mirror.
“My mind was drifting,” I informed her, glancing at Dr. Butler, his gunmetal gray eyes meeting my gaze. “I’m sorry, what’d you ask?”
He cleared his throat. “I asked how you’re feeling, as Hannah explained that you were seriously injured the night you saved her, Kola, Jake, and Harper.”
I scowled at Hannah. “I was hurt doing what now?”
She inhaled deeply, breathing through her nose. “I’m certain I said that he was deployed and was injured while he was abroad and not in the process of saving us,” she told Dr. Butler. “The men who he had to take out in the parking garage couldn’t have hurt him.”
“What do you mean couldn’t have?” Dr. Butler asked.
Hannah squinted at him. “What do you mean, what do I mean?”
Dr. Butler huffed out a breath. “I mean, why could those men—I understand there were three—not have hurt Mr. Hunt?”
The face she made, confused with a trace of annoyance—I knew her looks well—almost made me smile. “Because there were only three.”
“And Mr. Hunt is so capable that three men couldn’t offer him any resistance?”
“Of course not,” Hannah replied, and the duh was implied in her tone. “He’s him.”
“He’s him?” Dr. Butler repeated.
“There would have to be a whole lot more than three guys, Dr. Butler.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but Hannah took that opportunity to take off her seat belt, as we were now in line to get into the parking garage for the event, and push forward to lean over the seat.
“I don’t wanna fight all night just because I blindsided you with Dr. Butler.”
“Hannah,” Dr. Butler gasped from the back seat, which let me know that the man had been led to believe that meeting me at this event was kosher.
“I’m sorry already, so stop being all gross.”
I rolled my eyes, and she shook my shoulder gently, or tried to. I wasn’t a small person. I had quite a bit of height and muscle on her.
“Come on, I wanna be friends.”
“Fine,” I grumbled. “You know you make my brain hurt. Like inside my skull,” I informed her, going for annoyed, hoping I sounded that way.
“Yes, I know.” She pouted, clearly trying to incinerate me with a look.
“And you should apologize to Dr. Butler since he’s caught in the middle because you didn’t tell me he was coming and you told him I was good with this whole question-and-answer bullshit.”
“Mr. Hunt, if you’re not going to answer any of my questions pertaining to the kids, then I should probably––”
“I thought you had old colleagues to see and new peers to meet,” I said, repeating Hannah’s words from earlier. “I wouldn’t want you to miss out on schmoozing just because chattin’ me up is gonna be a bust.”
“I don’t understand what you have against therapy and helping the kids.”
“I have nothing against helping the kids, but talking to me is gonna shed no light on anything to do with any of them except maybe Hannah, and only so far as she’s trying to find me a soul mate and I ain’t gonna let her!”
I finished too loud, rolling up to the parking attendant, who was standing between two police officers. There were two on my left, two on my right, and a row of others on each side to make sure no one got in without an invitation. The whole sidewalk was crowded with photographers as well, only the presence of the uniformed officers keeping them from getting in front of cars, pressing up against windows or, my favorite, climbing on the hoods. I would have enjoyed bumping them out of the way myself, but I didn’t want my employer getting sued over a gentle nudge with the front of the luxury sedan. Normally I drove Hannah in one of the many SUVs with blacked-out windows, but this was a high-profile event, so I was instructed to take something sleeker from the PR department.
“I think you’re wrong,” Dr. Butler instructed me. “Hannah, as well as the boys, all speak quite highly of you, and though I don’t understand your penchant for violence, they seem to find you quite heroic.”
I was going to jump all over him for the “penchant for violence” comment, but I had to show my invite to the attendant, which was predicated on the fact that we had all been vaccinated. I wondered how Hannah had pulled off Dr. Butler being included as, obviously, he’d been a last-minute addition, but it was Aaron Sutter’s event, so he had probably cleared the man himself. I had no idea what they were going to do if I didn’t have an official ticket with me. How did they get people back out of the insane line? But then I watched as the guy in front of me had to drive around the normal ticket booth and toward the exit. They were being exceptionally careful with the event.