Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 66580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
So I savored our ride home together but also steeled myself to say good-bye to him. I’d be casual and flippant. Gangster. No big deal. If Wonder Woman could do it, so could I.
Of course, I wasn’t an Amazonian demi-goddess. I was just a waitress…
Shut up, Wonder Woman said. Do you know how many heroic waitresses there are? A few years ago, the waitresses at a Denny’s restaurant in Coeur d’Alene recognized an armed serial killer with a captive child, then stalled him until the police showed up! You telling me those women didn’t have courage?
Wait, what? Whoa… I had absolutely no memory of ever hearing or reading anything about this, so how the hell had my subconscious inserted it into an imaginary conversation with an Amazonian princess?
Holy shit. Was Wonder Woman real?
Jesus Christ, don’t be ridiculous, Wonder Woman snapped. Of course I’m not real. You’re talking to yourself, nitwit.
God. I was literally going crazy, on top of everything else. I tightened my hold on Shade and watched the road fly by under our wheels, trying very, very hard not to think of anything at all.
Thankfully, I’d managed to pull myself together and was braced to give Shade his casual good-bye when we reached Violetta. I was holding steady right up until we turned down the road and crossed the railroad tracks onto the flat. That’s when Hannah’s trailer came into view.
There was a sheriff’s patrol car parked out front.
My nails dug into Shade’s stomach, hard enough that he realized something was wrong. He passed the house, continuing down the street and then turning the corner to swing back around the grain elevator. There—safely hidden by the massive structure—he killed the big Harley engine.
Abrupt silence filled the air.
“I really like the way you scratch your nails down my back during sex,” Shade said after a long pause. “But it’s a hell of a lot less sexy when you’re trying to claw out my stomach. Wanna let go so we can talk this out?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, unclenching my fingers through will alone. Then I swung my leg over the bike. “Thanks so much for the ride. I can just walk home from here, no need to—”
Shade’s hand shot out, catching my arm, forcing me to face him.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen yet,” he said. I stared down at the big fingers, wishing I’d been faster. Shade was strong—no way I’d be getting away from him now. “Why are you scared of cops? I understood why things were tense the other day. You didn’t know why he was there and we’d just gone through the shit with Rebel. But you know damned well that Heath Andrews is at your house today ’cause he’s into your sister. You don’t need to be afraid of him. What gives?”
“Does it really matter?” I said, sighing as I looked at him. Really looked at him. God, I could hardly believe I’d slept with this guy. Shade was all badass and sunglasses and hair that’d been swept in the wind. I was just small town white trash with a good push-up bra. “It was just a one-night stand. Why do you care?”
Shade shook his head slowly, running his tongue along his bottom lip.
“Pull your head out of your ass, Mandy. This is not a one-night stand. I bought you a fucking phone and I introduced you to my friends. You came and ate burgers with us. What the fuck kind of one-night stand doesn’t end until five o’clock in the afternoon?”
“But you said…breakfast…”
Shade cocked a brow, and I closed my eyes, realizing I’d been deluding myself. I wasn’t a total moron. Shade didn’t buy girls breakfast, and he sure as shit didn’t hang out with them all day once the sex part was over.
This might not be a relationship, but it wasn’t a typical one-night stand, either.
“I’m on probation,” I blurted out.
“No shit,” Shade said slowly, obviously startled. “What for?”
“Technically, I was an accessory to an attempted robbery, but then I pled down to a misdemeanor in stupidity,” I said, staring at his bike’s air-brushed gas tank. There was a picture of a pinup girl, like on a World War II airplane. It was good. Really good.
“You wanna elaborate on what happened?”
“Here’s the thing,” I said, looking back up at him and biting my lip. “It’s the curse of the McBride women. I told you—we pick bad men. My mom got hitched five times, and not one of them stuck. She married the last one when we lived in Spokane. Hannah was nineteen and I was seventeen. One night he and Mom went out and they never came back, because he’d gotten drunk and crashed the car into the river.”
“I’m really sorry, babe,” Shade said, reaching his hand around the back of my neck, giving it a squeeze. I liked that. Supportive without the expectation that I was going to collapse in a puddle of tears. I’d survived way too much to fall apart behind a grain elevator.