Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Somehow, my heart doesn’t care.
Just seeing him again makes me feel like the spindly, knob-kneed girl I used to be. I almost forget how easily he can be a sledgehammer to the heart.
There I was, trailing after my older brother and his best friend like a lost kitten.
Completely hypnotized by Grant’s stone-cold silence, his gruffness, his mystery.
Like half the girls in Redhaven, I thought I was going to be the magic one who could get through to him when all he saw was a skinny pipsqueak who wouldn’t go away.
I want to hate him for that, too.
But I’m not that girl anymore.
I’m a grown woman with a life and problems of my own.
I don’t need Grant Faircross to notice me.
Except as he stands there, looking at me with his thick, coarse hands resting on his hips and the wind whipping at his chocolate hair with just a hint of silver, I’m frozen.
Absolutely tongue-tied since I won’t admit to being awed.
I can’t handle this right now.
It’s too much, too soon, when everything else piling up has me feeling as fragile as blown glass. So ready to shatter in an instant if he utters one harsh word.
But he doesn’t say anything at all.
He just reaches inside the patrol car, retrieves a battered brown cowboy hat from the dash, and settles it on his head.
My breath stalls.
Ethan’s hat.
My brother used to wear that freaking thing everywhere, ever since he was a kid, never caring that it was too big for him. Then one day he just chucked it onto Grant’s head and said, If you won’t say we’re best friends, you big asshole, at least wear this dumb hat. That way I know we’re cool.
Grant didn’t say a word.
He never did.
The man could never string a single sentence together in emotional-speak.
Oh, but he’d worn that dumb hat, all right.
And seeing it settled on his head now, the broad brim shadowing his eyes and the leather band still dotted with those turquoise beads I carved ages ago into the shapes of crude, tiny butterflies...
I’m gone.
I feel myself falling down, ready to cry.
I’m actually glad when Grant doesn’t say one word.
He just strides past me, his steps long and lazy with a terrible hint of swagger.
So, he still carries himself with the aura of a man who knows just how much space he takes up and how much strength he packs in the slightest movement.
There’s a breathless moment when he brushes past me.
When my lungs remember how to work, I can even smell him.
Something like woodsmoke and fresh, clean, earthy masculinity.
His scent slaps me back to that unspeakable night so long ago.
A time when I thought nothing of being buried against Grant’s chest, secretly burning and hiding against him while he held me, comforted me, kept my crumbling world from falling down.
He let me inhale him then until I couldn’t smell the salt of my own tears pouring down my cheeks.
Then he’s gone, and I’m back in the dreary present.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I fight a chill that runs deeper than any cold.
Turning, I watch as Grant prowls to the front of the car and its open hood. Even with the raised metal in the way, he’s so broad that when he bends over the Corolla’s innards, I can still see his shoulder protruding past it.
Beautiful.
Not even a Welcome home, Ophelia.
But maybe he’s never forgiven me for leaving.
You’re gonna run, Philia? That’s your answer? Fucking running away from Ethan?
Then don’t come back.
It still stings like it did the first time he killed me with those words.
I haven’t seen him since that day.
Until now.
And what a sight for sore eyes I must be, back in Redhaven with my tail tucked between my legs, as miserable and small as if I never left at all.
If he’s the least bit torn up, he doesn’t show it.
Grant fiddles with something inside the car—and his rough, sandpapery voice emerges from behind the hood. “Radiator hose popped.”
“It did not. I checked.” I instantly scowl.
“Should’ve checked harder,” he growls. “Damn thing can look like it’s still together, but once the seal breaks you’re not going anywhere, Butterfly.”
Ugh, that nickname.
The big idiot can still cut me open with a single word.
It really is like I was just here yesterday.
To him, I’m still the starry-eyed little sister who doesn’t know what she’s doing, who has to be watched like the unwanted tagalong.
If Ethan were here, he’d smack Grant on the back of the head and tell him to be nicer to the butterfly nerd.
But Ethan’s not here.
Just his ghost, making the silence between us so tense it’s suffocating.
While I’m fighting the bitterness on my tongue, Grant fiddles with something inside the Corolla. Then he straightens and slams the hood shut with a deafening boom!
The car bounces on its wheels.
“That’ll do you for a few.” He lifts his head, fixing those unreadable mocha-dark hazel eyes on me. “Long enough to get you over to Mort’s. Wouldn’t drive it any farther.”