Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
After everything, all Lucia could do was smile at her brother. They’d been through hell and back, but God knew she loved her brother more than she could ever explain. Despite it all, he was still her very best friend and she wouldn’t give him up for the world. Yes, it took a little bit of time to get back to that good place with him, but she didn’t mind putting in the effort. It was worth it.
“You look happy,” he murmured, leaning in for a hug.
She took it, and squeezed back tightly. “I am.”
“Glad to see you back.”
“Me, too, John.”
“So ...” All eyes turned on Catrina who looked Renzo’s way. “How did it happen?”
Instantly, Lucia felt the heat rise in her cheeks as her gaze landed on her father who had just come to stand right beside her mother. Lucian’s arm hugged her mother’s waist as he looked their way expectantly.
“Well ...”
She looked to Renzo for help.
He just smirked.
“What is that about?” Lucian asked.
“I mean, there was nothing big or planned about it, I don’t think. We were just ... he just asked,” Lucia rambled, saying it fast to get them away from that subject. “So yeah, and I loved it, that’s what counts.”
“Why is your face red?” Catherine asked.
“Shut up, Catty.”
“Oh.” Cross nodded, looking Renzo’s way. “You asked like that, huh?”
Renzo chuckled. “Well—”
“Like what?”
“In bed,” someone else said.
Just like that, Lucia’s father’s face suddenly matched her own. Red as could be, and he did his best to avoid everyone’s stare.
“What.”
Lucian’s statement wasn’t even a question.
Just a what.
“Well, you see,” Lucia tried to say, but didn’t even get the chance to finish.
“I have told all my kids not to do that in bed, because that is not the story I want to be told. Please tell me you didn’t—”
“Technically, we weren’t in a bed,” Renzo interrupted. “And I got her dressed first, so all is good.”
“All is not good!”
Yep.
Lucia could have died right where she stood.
And still, it was great.
Fragility
“Ren?”
He heard Lucia’s call of his name, but couldn’t be bothered to even turn his head to answer it. That would take a great deal of effort that he was neither capable of, nor interested in. Since his release from the hospital, the visitors had been nonstop. Apparently, Renzo had more people who cared about them that he thought.
Not that it mattered.
He didn’t want to see them.
Or maybe ...
He didn’t want them to see him like this.
Weak.
Incapable.
Tremors rocking his once steady hands. Scars from surgeries. Burns still healing. Jumbled in his mind. Words that came out wrong.
Everything was wrong.
He hated it.
Which meant he hated himself, too.
Instead, he found solace in sitting near windows watching the day and life outside the apartment where he’d currently holed himself into. More than one person had pointed out he was likely experiencing some depression, and frankly, they weren’t wrong. It also didn’t make a difference to the fact Renzo had no inspiration or drive to do anything.
Including physical therapy.
Or any of that other shit.
It was tiring.
He hurt.
Why bother?
“Ren,” Lucia called again.
“Yeah, in a minute, babe,” he answered back quietly.
She just sighed.
She never pushed.
He loved her for that.
“He’s like this a lot lately.”
“We’ll see if I can make a difference with that,” came a new, but familiar voice.
“Fucking Cree,” Renzo grumbled.
He didn’t even get the chance to turn around on his chair before Cree had come to stand in front of his seat. Without grace or care, the large man dropped down in the couch opposite to Renzo with a leather satchel landing in his lap. Just as quickly, he picked the bag up and tossed it to the coffee table between them.
A few items spilled out.
Bags of beads.
Yellow. White. Red. Black.
Leather cord.
“Is that a stick?” Renzo asked.
“A very flexible stick—I need them when I make medicine wheels.”
Renzo’s brow furrowed, but Cree didn’t seem to mind nor did he apparently have any interest in explaining what he was doing. Leaning forward, he grabbed the satchel and dumped out the remaining contents. The four colored beads came in many sizes. There was quite a bit of brown leather cord. And a few sticks, one of which Cree grabbed along with a leather cord at which he bent into a circle and then began to tie off to keep it that way.
“What are you doing?”
“Making a medicine wheel,” Cree said, “although that’s what the Europeans and Americans named it—we simply adopted it. And I’m doing it because it relaxes my mind, and reminds me what is most important when I work. My father—he came from a small tribe of Indigenous People located on the eastern shore of a Canadian reserve. Maliseet. My mother—she came from the Cree that settled in Quebec.”
“Like your name.”
“Was only meant to be a moniker—it ended up sticking. I got used to it, we’ll say.”