Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“Why’re you shaking?” he whispered in my ear.
“Because I never thought, ever, that I would get you.”
“Yes, you did,” he said, kissing the side of my neck. “Deep down, you knew.”
“No. I thought you were going to have a lake house and pottery studio.”
He was quiet a moment and then said, “What?”
“I had a whole thing worked out in my head.”
Turning me around, he took my face in his hands. “Well, I’m the idiot because I could never get an image in my head of what I would look like married. Every time I thought about it, I kept imagining you with me as well, cleaning your gun and asking me what the fuck we were doing there.”
I chuckled and was rewarded with a wide smile.
“You know, if I’d used my brain, even for a moment, I would have grasped what my subconscious was trying to tell me.”
“And what was that?”
“That it was always you, Jed. Always,” he said with a sigh before kissing me.
I couldn’t wait to kiss him for the rest of my life.
It was weird, we should have been all over each other, but I was hurt and exhausted, and he was simply worn out. Both of us being awake and vertical was a tremendous feat all on its own.
The food was there when we got out, soup and sandwiches, and I said we should eat before he wrapped me up like a mummy.
“You apparently have no idea how a mummy was wrapped up,” he said, squinting at me. “And I will not have you accidentally tripping over something and reinjuring your shoulder.”
“Tripping over something?” I was indignant. “What am I, eighty?”
He was snickering as he left the room.
“I’m not old!”
“Glad to finally hear you say it,” he yelled back.
“I really missed you,” I called out.
“I know you did,” he said as he walked back in with all the supplies, reached me, and lifted for a kiss. “Give me love.”
And I did.
After we ate, that was it. He helped me put the brace on, and we went into my bedroom and lay down. I rolled over on my good side, and I had him plastered to my back in moments, arm around my waist, face pressed into my nape, spooned tight. I couldn’t remember sleeping so well in years, and that was so peaceful.
And then it wasn’t because the noises weren’t right.
I knew all the sounds my house made. The settling creaks, the scrapes when the branches of the sixty-foot oak trees around my house touched my windows, the thunks when the damn squirrels dropped acorns on my roof. But unless you stepped on the wooden stairs out front, they did not make any noise. Since they now creaked, and then my front door rattled, I sat up, only then realizing I was alone in bed. Bodhi was gone, and the house was dark. What was really confusing was that at the end of my bed there was a wolf.
I was clearly dreaming.
Maneuvering out of bed took some work, not because I was old, but because I’d been asleep a second ago and only had one arm. But once I was vertical, I felt extremely vulnerable with only pajama bottoms on and no shirt.
Even in the darkness, I realized that the wolf was not looking at me. Instead, he was lying on the bed, paws crossed, absolutely entranced with the sounds that had woken me up.
“Wait,” I whispered to myself, coming completely awake. “Chickie,” I said to Ian and Miro’s dog, who turned his head to look at me, his tail thumping my bed a few times before he turned back to the door.
Where was Bodhi? Why was the dog here and he wasn’t? I was so confused.
Moving to my nightstand, I pulled my gun from the top drawer, did a press check, making sure it was loaded, and then was about to go to the front door, when my phone started vibrating.
The latest message was from Bodhi, asking me to call him as soon as I woke up. Quickly scrolling through the others, there was one from Kage saying to stay home. He wanted me to rest until the following day. And he knew he’d said that no one should be alone, but home, with my gun, and Chickie—he considered me safe. That made sense to me.
The one from Miro said that his friends who normally watched Chickie were out of town, so when he picked up Bodhi, he dropped off Chickie, and that there was food in the freezer and some thawing in the refrigerator.
Again, that was logical.
A new message from Bodhi came in, saying he was with Miro, looking for Brodie like everyone else, running down leads. It was all hands on deck with the manhunt. I didn’t like being left out but I understood my boss’s concern. I wasn’t even a full week out of the hospital.