Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
He nodded her way. “Could you keep an eye on the bike? I’ll be five minutes—max.”
Gracen laughed a little, using the cup in her hands as something to focus on while she told the stranger, “I mean, it’s The Valley. Nobody’s stealing anything here. I don’t think you have very much to worry about. Are you new?”
She didn’t mean for it to sound rude, but it was possible that it still came out that way. Before she could apologize and explain, however, the guy hopped off his bike with a chuckle.
“Definitely not new to the area, but I’m not sticking around for too long, either,” he muttered, but adding nothing more to the topic to explain his unusual and random request. “Here, catch.”
Gracen, not particularly the best with her hand and eye coordination, nearly missed the set of keys he tossed between their respective vehicles. Somehow, she managed to snatch the jingling ring as it flew beyond her opened window.
“What’s—”
“Don’t ask what they are. You know. I’ll grab them on the way back, okay?”
“Sure ... I guess?”
He didn’t wait for more of a response. More confused than ever, Gracen could only smile at the surreal scene while she watched the back of the stranger shrink in the side mirror as he walked across the parking lot. Being the honest woman that she liked to pride herself to be, Gracen had to admit the sight of his thighs and backside hugged in black denim looked just as good as when he’d been straddling his bike.
Jesus. Hadn’t she just been crying about her ex five minutes ago? She couldn’t understand why Sonny could take up space in her entire mind, so much so that she felt like a puddle of useless emotions, only for a stranger to come along with a cute grin to knock her ex off his throne. Shouldn’t that mean her past and long-dead relationship was beyond over?
Why did it still have to hurt?
Like this, too?
A shaky breath escaped her.
And then another.
By the time the stranger had disappeared inside the liquor store in her mirror, Gracen had wiped away another stray tear or two. Using the same hand that clutched tight to the man’s motorbike keys. She didn’t have the first clue how her life could seem so put together on the outside but feel like it was all crumbling to pieces on the inside. Didn’t that make her a fraud?
Always pretending?
Getting control of her emotions was easier said than done the second time around by focusing her attention on fiddling with the key ring. It helped. She toyed with the gleaming silver charm in the shape of her home province—the engraved home making her smile as her thumb traced the jagged edge of New Brunswick’s coast. If anything, it took her mind off the mess that had become her current day and put it back on the stranger whose name she hadn’t thought to get before he asked for his favor.
A favor she still thought was silly.
Especially in a town like this.
Crime was low. Laughably. Teenagers took up most of the criminal activity with bridge jumping in the summer or vandalizing someone’s property. For the most part, next to the slightly culty church on the hill that left people alone if it was given the same respect, there wasn’t much else to see happening in the sleepy valley town.
And he said he wasn’t new?
Gracen glanced down at the keys again, considering ...
Was he trying to talk to me?
She barely had time to ask her the question, never mind a moment to consider the answer, before her phone rang in the cupholder. Assuming right away that it was the same person who had called her the last four times—Delaney—Gracen barely glanced at the screen when she scooped it up. She screened a lot of her calls, a hazard of the job, and it was second nature to swipe her thumb to reject the call to voicemail before she even thought about it.
Gracen realized too late the called had been Valleyview Manor.
Crap.
She wouldn’t get a chance to call back.
“Care to make a trade?” Gracen heard asked at her left.
She still hadn’t bothered to turn on the car and roll up the window. Maybe that’s what made people think she was up for conversation. Except it wasn’t somebody new. Buddy on the bike was back with that same lopsided grin of his from before that showed off just a hint of his white teeth. Outstretched in his hand was a four-pack of a pink Nova Scotian distilled Rosé cider that Gracen knew well. The brand was a secret favorite of hers that this man couldn’t possibly know she liked.
“A four-pack of No Boats On Sunday for my keys back,” he told her, smiling a little wider so those shockingly sky-blue eyes of his squinted with a few crow’s feet lines around the edges. He shrugged, too. “And maybe a thank you.”