Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 138588 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138588 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Yeah, this was why she should go to the clinic. Her mother’s voice still dominated her life, still brought a cloud over everything. She’d changed five times before her date last night because she could hear her mother’s criticism of everything she put on. “Thanks so much. I will definitely think about it. As for the bad electricity, I’m going to force my landlord to take care of it. I’m going to tell Marie I won’t take another day of my landlord putting me off. I might be one small part of this person’s wealth, but they owe me some respect as a renter.”
Nell seemed to think about that for a moment. “Well, you’ll have to wait until Marie gets back from New York. She and Teeny are there because Logan and Seth’s wife, Georgia, went into labor early. They’d been planning to have the baby here in Bliss, but life made their kid an Upper East Sider. I hope it doesn’t affect his ideas on climate change. Anyway, I know who your landlord is if you want to talk to him yourself. Though he’s on the crabby side. Don’t blame him. It’s only because no one’s pulled the thorn out of his paw yet.”
Sometimes Nell could be hard to follow. “He has a thorn?” Actually, maybe that wasn’t the question to ask. “He has a paw?”
Nell nodded sagely. “Oh, yes. It comes from childhood, and perhaps the time he spent away from Bliss. He holds all of his emotions very tightly. He looks like he’s made from granite, but he’s not. There’s a soft heart in there. I think he has abandonment issues. His father left early on, and his mom died. He was raised by his grandfather, who died a couple of years back, and his two brothers didn’t hang around. But now he has a friend. I’m almost certain he knows Sawyer from his…more interesting days, but he seems like a ray of sunshine.”
“Sawyer?” She kind of thought she’d heard the name before but she couldn’t put a face to it. Why did it sound so familiar?
Nell nodded. “Sawyer Hathaway. He lives on one of the mountains. I could go with you to talk to him if you like.”
She didn’t need anyone as an emotional support human. She was an adult, and she would likely be alone all of her life. The school-marm wallflower, all things lonely woman, and it was time she accepted her independence. “No, but I would appreciate directions.”
Nell told her how to get to her landlord’s home.
After school, Sabrina would make her stand.
* * * *
“So we’re like a Waffle House in hurricane country.” Wyatt hopped down and moved to the back of the Jeep where all the supplies they’d picked up in Alamosa were stacked. The snow crunched beneath his boots. There was already a couple of inches on the ground, but according to everyone he talked to this was nothing compared to what they’d wake up to in the morning.
It was weird to think he wouldn’t be spending tonight at the bar. Hell on Wheels had become as much his home as this cabin.
Sawyer popped the back open and gave him a frown. “Waffle House?”
His best friend could be dense from time to time. Although he had to allow Sawyer hadn’t spent much time out of Southern Colorado.
“It’s how people on the coast know if the hurricane is serious rather than media hyped. If the Waffle House closes, you get your butt out of the way. Same for Hell on Wheels. If Hell on Wheels is closed, you know it’s going to be bad.”
Sawyer hefted a case of bottled water. The well water they were on sometimes froze up during bad storms, he’d explained. “Well, the last thing I need is to have to deal with a bunch of drunk assholes who can’t get home.”
“I thought we decided we were going to call them valued customers.” He was working on Sawyer’s business skills. Not that Wyatt himself had any, but he was learning. He’d found the library in Del Norte and checked out books on business and self-help and finance. It had become apparent to Wyatt there were certain parts of Sawyer’s surprisingly varied business portfolio Sawyer didn’t enjoy running. Which was actually most of it.
Sawyer preferred to be in his workshop. It was his fortress of solitude. Wyatt was pretty certain almost no one else in his life knew how dedicated to creating furniture made of reclaimed wood the man was. He sold each piece online for ridiculously high prices but always had someone else meet the buyer.
Like being an artist would mar his terrible reputation.
Wyatt was working on that, too. Sawyer was awesome, but he had definite abandonment issues and a deep-seated fear of rejection. He’d worked a couple of psych books in, too.