Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 111(@200wpm)___ 89(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 111(@200wpm)___ 89(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
Damn, she’s doing something to me. I’ve never thought anything so poetic before in my life.
Those lovely eyes meet my own, and I’m feeling a bit off guard. Which is weird, since girls didn’t usually do that to me. I’ve always been able to play it super smooth and super cool with everyone.
“Hmm?” She says. “And who might you be?”
Her voice has an ethereal charm to it, like she’s some sort of fey in the guise of a full grown human woman, and goddamn, what a woman she is. I can’t help but look her up and down. Her dress is something right out of a thrift store from forty years ago, but she wears it perfectly. It’s her own style, and she lives it. She knows what she wants, and doesn’t falter with her confidence in what some might see as a style that doesn’t belong in the twenty-first century. It’s today, it’s on her, so it’s in style, and she won’t hear a word to the contrary.
She’s looking right at me and that’s got me a bit weak in the knees. Nevertheless, I’m going to pull myself together, slicking my hair back and giving her the ol’ charming smile. “Hello there. Fox Foster, and would it be too much for me to ask a beautiful woman’s name?”
The pretty lady cackles. “Going right for what you want, huh? I like that.”
“Does that mean it’s too much to ask for your name?”
Her grin widens. “No. Of course not. I’m Tabitha. And I’m guessing you’re one of the boy’s friends?”
“Not one of them. All of them. Hunter, Hawk, and Bear and I go way back. We were almost brothers. I just had to go away for a while.”
She does seem vaguely familiar. Maybe I saw her briefly at Savvy and Hunter’s wedding? The whole damn thing was such a whirlwind that you could show me photographic proof that I was there and I’d cast doubts at you.
Finally able to take my eyes off her, I can see what she’s peddling. Handcrafted glass, various metals with unique styles of painting. They weren’t what most people usually went after with pendants and rings, these were for people who wanted their jewelry to communicate something more than their wealth. I pick up an earring. “Don’t think this is my style, but I think my mother would love this.”
Tabitha comes over to take a gander at what I’m holding. “Oh, that’s some petrified bark, stained with a little bit of red. The bark represents the earth, where the red represents the blood that keeps flowing through it, a tiny encapsulation of eternity.”
I chuckle. “I just thought my Mom would like the color, but she’ll definitely like that idea too.”
“Maybe I’ll meet her some time and talk about it.”
My smile grows. “We met thirty seconds ago, and you’re already talking about meeting my parents, huh?”
“What, you think I didn’t notice how you were looking at me, and thinking all sorts of untamed thoughts?” Her accusatory tone bounced off her charming grin.
“I wouldn’t call them untamed, but they were thoughts that do eventually end up with you meeting my parents.”
“Let’s not go too fast,” she says leaning against me. “There’s plenty of dirty, filthy, and fun things we need to do before we get to something as wholesome as that.”
“Oh, yes. There is. Would you like to join me on getting started on our journey toward those?”
She’s cracking up, and I’m right there with her.
This girl is something special, and to think, I would have never run into her if a certain someone didn’t yearn for huckelberry jam.
TWO
tabitha
This Fox guy is definitely a charmer, and I’m not the first girl he’s used his charms on.
But I can’t say I’m going to care about that.
There’s an earnestness about him. Most guys trying to be cool in front of me don’t immediately confess to buying gifts for their mothers, or fess up that they’re only there to run an errand for her.
Fox, though? He doesn’t even try to hide it.
Him being quite the looker certainly helps things. Tall, dark, and handsome, stone cutting jaw, piercing blue eyes, and one hell of a smile. Absolutely conventionally handsome in every sense of the word, but it’s what’s considered conventional for a reason, it’s hot as hell and ninety-five percent of women are going to dig that.
Even if I always thought of myself as a girl who goes down her own path, I can’t deny the appeal that Fox has, not for a moment.
“So you can see that I’m a self-established business woman who is running her own jewelry store filled only with her own artisanally produced designs,” I say as we continue to go over my stock. I’m not looking to sell more things to him at this point, but I just want to keep talking to him more than anything else. “May I ask what my dear customer does for a living?”