Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Meaning I could pass for C. Capone, even though it was technically meant to be my brother.
“Colette Freya Capone, age twenty-eight, is last year’s winner’s sister. Officer Corey Capone died earlier this year in a car accident. He’s won the competition nine years running. It would be wonderful if his sister could take up the mantle here at Texas’s largest shooting competition.”
I ignored the announcer, sure he wouldn’t be talking behind my back if he knew I could hear him.
Most people wore ear protection when they did this.
I forgot mine.
I’d been offered some, but had only shook my head in the negative.
The things covering my ears were actually Bluetooth headphones that were made to look like ear protection. They’d been a gag gift from Corey last Christmas.
Little did he know I’d be wearing them and doing something incredibly stupid all at once.
My eye steadied on the scope.
I breathed out. In. Out.
My finger caressed the trigger.
I’d done this hundreds of times.
Just not in a competition with the most elite long distance shooters in all of the world.
I’d probably shoot this and make a fool of myself.
Although I’d done it many times before and had been taught just as thoroughly as my brother had, I didn’t have the sheer number of hours behind the lens of the scope that my brother had.
These men that were in the lineup with me practiced this for hours a day.
I hadn’t picked up this gun in well over four months.
Not since my brother had taken me out to our property just off of Caddo Lake about a month before he’d died.
I prayed what I was doing was correct.
I didn’t hear any horrified whispers, so obviously all the calculations I’d run through in my head were correct.
My breathing slowed as I focused on the red in the target.
With one last breath, air left my lungs and I took the shot.
It was loud, and I instantly regretted my decision to act like my earphones were what they were supposed to be.
Ears ringing, I studied my target, completely and utterly surprised to find the bullet had gone right through the center of the bullseye.
Perfect shot at 903 yards.
Holy fucking shit.
It took me a few minutes to realize that the roar I was hearing was the crowd.
I blushed like a fucking fifteen-year-old being asked to prom and jacked the casing from the gun and stood up, finally looking behind me at the men at my back.
It was different from this side of the competition.
Normally, I was the one in the seats at the back of the large seating area.
Now I was getting pictures taken of me.
Great, now I was blind and deaf.
I felt a hand on my arm, causing me to turn.
I smiled.
“Hey!” I said excitedly, throwing my arms around my brother’s friend whom I hadn’t seen in ages.
They’d met long ago in the army, and had stayed in touch. Or tried to, at least. Though my brother was in Uncertain, and James was in Kilgore, a mere forty-five minutes apart, they didn’t get to see each other anywhere near as much as they would’ve liked.
“I’m good,” James laughed. “You know you beat me, right?”
My mouth dropped open.
“You’re shitting me,” I gasped. “How?”
He pointed at the target that one of the runners had gone to fetch. “That’s how.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “You’re the bomb. You should’ve won,” I said. “But your eye’s swollen shut.”
He touched the skin underneath lightly.
“I got punched in the face last night by a meth head,” he explained.
“So I won on a technicality?” I asked.
He smiled.
“We’ll never know. I should’ve known not to come. She made me, though,” James said, pointing.
I followed his finger, then waved at his wife.
She waved back, giving me a thumb’s up.
“Hoes before bros,” I teased when James sighed in exasperation.
He snorted.
“She’s not a hoe,” he countered.
I shrugged, turning my face to look at the crowd once again.
Something had caused it to part.
Then I saw the beard…and the tattoo on the hand that was crossed over one giant arm.
And that shaggy, needed-to-be-cut-two-months-ago hair.
“Shit,” I said to no one in particular.
My eyes went down to the ground, and in the process, I caught my first look at James’ hand.
“Your hand’s in a cast,” I said to him.
James snorted.
“Yeah, got that lovely little diddy last night, too,” he said. “I’ve never, not in my life, broken a bone. Then last night happens. It hurt like a bitch, too. Who’s that man coming towards you?”
I licked my lips.
“My brother’s coworker…and the man I have a major crush on,” I whispered.
I didn’t know why I was whispering.
But with the way Ridley was coming at me, I felt it was warranted.
I didn’t want him to hear what I had to say.
It seemed so juvenile of a thing to say, and I didn’t want him to know.