Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 136247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 681(@200wpm)___ 545(@250wpm)___ 454(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 681(@200wpm)___ 545(@250wpm)___ 454(@300wpm)
“Right. Kids around here still ride their bikes all over town. They know it’s time to go home when the streetlights switch on, and then sneak out to go swimming in the pond behind the park. Crazy murder mystery stuff doesn’t happen out here.”
“Not counting what went down with Drake and Bella, Ridge and Grace, poor old Tobin, you mean...” I tick each name off with my fingers. “This town might be a speck on the map, but it’s not as quiet as it used to be, darlin’.”
I’m not just trying to give her shit. She reminded me of something else the instant she mentioned swimming in that pond.
How I’d found her with the other kids, swimming in the city pond that last summer before I went off to serve Uncle Sam. Stripped down to their skivvies.
She was too young, too perfect, too hot not to drill down in my brain and leave me with dirty damn dreams out the wazoo.
I’d been twenty. Already too old to look at her with any longing.
But hell, when she looked up and smiled with all that skin, asking if I was just gonna stand there all day with a stick up my butt or take off my shirt and dive in...
I’d wanted to leap in and show her sassy little hind the palm of my hand.
“Remember that? When you’d hauled me home to Granny after swimming?” she asks, flashing me a smile that drags my mind right back to her sweet, grown-up, all-too-enticing ass.
I start the truck and back out of the parking spot.
“Yeah, yeah, I remember. You shouldn’t have been out that late. It was already almost sundown; the fireflies were coming out. And that pond is mostly for ice skating in the winter. It’s never been deep enough for real swimming, more like a soak,” I grumble, trying like hell to avoid thinking about how she’d look now in nothing but a bikini.
“So? That never stopped you from joining in for all of ten or twenty minutes.”
My throat catches on this little sputter.
She isn’t wrong, but damn her if I’ll admit it.
Damn her again if Tory ever finds out I practically dragged her home because I couldn’t take this other boy her age looking every time she turned around. I was on the brink of laying claim to every bit of her, and goddamn jealous, too.
“I know you liked it,” she says. “My memory never lets me down.”
“Sure. We all used that little hole to cool off when it got real humid,” I tell her.
“I bet kids still mess around in the pond.”
“I don’t. The party’s over.”
“What? No way.” Her eyes light up adorably. “Why?”
“Because Sheriff Wallace decided to step up park patrols a little while ago. Too many punks bringing their daddy’s six-packs there to slurp without even having the decency to clean up the cans. Can’t have minors getting drunk on public property or turning it into a dump.”
“Oh. Bummer.” She toys with an auburn lock of hair, deep in her own head as I fight to look away. “Seems like some things never change around here. I kinda hoped that was one more. Imagine if we snuck back there for nostalgia?”
I huff out a breath like fire at the idea of going swimming with her now. At night.
Now that we’re both grown-up and finding every excuse to hang out like this. Never mind whether or not they’re good ones.
Shit.
“Just promise to call me when you’re heading out next time for goat duty, okay?”
“I can’t put you out like that, Quinn.” She smiles at me. “But I will text you. And I promise to call you if I need help, or if I see anybody else with freaky tattoos trying to get in Carolina’s pants.”
“Woman, you’d better,” I growl.
Figuring I’m going to have to settle for that right now, I give her an easy smile.
“And you’d better be ready to drink some strawberry rhubarb wine,” Tory says.
“Why’s that?”
She points at the clock on the dash. “We’ve only been gone a little over an hour. Granny’s next door, at Otis and Velma’s, and she’ll see us pull in. I don’t want her getting...ideas.”
She bites her lip on that last word, pulling on her heart-shaped mouth.
Oh, fuck.
So much for not going home with blue balls bigger than boulders tonight.
She’s right about one thing, though.
“If you’re so hungry for a break from Granny Coffey, fine. I’m not taking you home yet.” I turn at the next corner.
“Where are we going?”
“You just volunteered to help me install a washer so I’ll have clean clothes tomorrow.”
“You’re so ridiculous.” She falls back in her seat and laughs, shaking her head fiercely. “Tell me you at least have a dryer?”
“Yep. Brand new. She’s a beaut,” I throw back.
“Which also needs to be installed?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thanks for being so willing to help a man out. Don’t worry, nothing with muscle, you get the light stuff.”