Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 90164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
“I know,” he says with a sigh. “Maybe it’s time we look for another one and see if that one sticks. Joy wants to travel, and you know as well as I do that I could never tell that woman no.”
“She wants to travel?” I stare over at him in surprise. “She hates to fly. She’s always sworn that she wouldn’t get on a tin can with wings.”
“She’s changed her mind.” He shrugs. “Maybe it’s hormonal. How in the hell should I know? Anyway, I wanted to let you know so it’s on your radar.”
Great. One more thing on my already overloaded radar.
“No problem. I’ll see to it. I heard from Ryan the other day.”
Dad’s eyebrow wings up. “And?”
“He’s coming home next week. He was just giving me a heads-up. We’ll want to do a big family dinner, I suppose.”
“Your mother would like that,” he agrees. “You know, you and Ryan need to figure your shit out.”
I smirk and shrug a shoulder.
“I’m serious, Rem. You two may be as different as they come, but he’s your brother.”
“I don’t dislike him.”
Okay, that’s a lie. I do dislike my brother. He’s only a year younger than me, and we were always as close as we could be. Best friends. Planned to live our lives on this ranch, the way our dad and his dad had done before us. Then Ryan got a taste for money. Venture capitals, and all of the shit involved in that that I don’t understand or care about.
But it’s made Ryan a billionaire before he’s thirty-five.
“You don’t like him,” Dad points out.
“We want different things.”
Dad nods thoughtfully. “That’s for sure. When do the kids get out of school?”
I check my watch. “In about an hour. I should get back to the house and clean up before I head to town to pick them up.”
“The school bus has a stop right at the end of our driveway.”
I shake my head as we turn the horses and start back to the barn. “I don’t want my kids sitting on that bus for two hours after school. That’s not fair. I’ll get them.”
“Maybe you need a nanny,” Dad suggests, and I shake my head again.
“I’m doing fine by my kids.”
“You’re doing fantastic,” he corrects me. “Doesn’t mean that you couldn’t use some help. If your mother and I do start to travel, we won’t be here to help as much.”
I’ve thought of that, of course. I admit, I depend on my mom for a lot when it comes to the kids. If she’s gone, I’ll just have to utilize my ranch hands more to cover the work I can’t see to.
And that doesn’t feel right either.
“Something else to think about,” Dad says with a smile.
I feel a little guilty that whenever I go into the coffee shop in the afternoons, on my way to get the kids, my sister is already gone for the day. I hardly ever see her now that she’s moved into town and is doing her own thing. As annoying as she could be when she was little, I’ll admit that I miss the hell out of her.
But I don’t have time to come into town any earlier than this. Hell, I’m lucky if I make it off the ranch in time to stop in for the coffee at all.
Some days, Marion, the owner, is here, and she tries to chat me up. Marion has always been chatty. She’s nice enough, but my mind is usually elsewhere.
Today, the other afternoon woman is here. I don’t know her name. I assume she’s new to town because I only started seeing her around Christmastime.
She’s pretty. Okay, pretty is a fucking understatement. She’s gorgeous, from head to toe. Rich, dark hair is twisted up in a bun at the base of her neck. She’s wearing a green Bitterroot Valley Coffee Co. T-shirt, a black apron, and some jeans that hug her ass in a way that makes my dick twitch, and she’s wielding a mop when I walk through the door.
She looks up, and her friendly smile dims, replaced by a fake one.
“Hello,” she says happily and sets the mop aside before walking behind the counter to wait on me. “Man, it’s been raining all day.”
Just when I’m about to tell her that it hasn’t rained a bit at the ranch, she starts to sneeze uncontrollably. She steps away, sneezing into the towel she picked up off the counter. It’s not a feminine sneeze, the way some women let out a tiny little achoo.
No, hers is loud and sounds like a linebacker’s.
It’s actually kind of cute.
“Oh, man, sorry about that. There must be something in the air right now, with it being spring and everything. I’ve been sneezing like that all day.” She walks over to wash her hands before walking back over to me.