Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Time is dwindling.
The truck is closing the distance.
And I cut the proverbial wire and put myself in the road. Directly in front of the moving truck.
A beat of time lifts my heart into my throat before tires skid across the dirt, and the truck comes to a shaky stop about a foot away from my body. A cloud of dust rushes forward and swirls around me like a tornado.
When we’re finally close enough to see each other, the driver’s eyes lock with mine, venom and disbelief within them. Guilt and shame form a friendship in my chest, shaking hands and sharing smiles and leaving me feeling like a buffoon.
“I’m sorry!” I exclaim toward him, lifting my arms in apology at his huge, unmoving frame. His tanned knuckles tighten reflexively around the white steering wheel.
Cautiously, I walk toward the driver’s side door. His window is rolled down, and the soft sounds of an oldies sixties song my father loved to listen to when Josie, Jezzy, and I were just kids trills from the speakers.
The man in the driver’s seat, however, is soundless.
I feel seventy shades of awkward, but I swallow past my discomfort and try to cut through the tension with an apologetic knife. “I’m really, really sorry. I just… I was just trying to get your attention and—” I stop midsentence when his blue eyes move across the dashboard to meet mine. The malevolence in them would silence anyone.
“And you thought it was a good idea to throw your body in front of my truck?” he questions with a deep, husky voice of honey and sandpaper all at once.
My stomach lurches and pitches to one side. I loathe upsetting people, even strangers, and yes, I imagine Freud would have something to say about that.
“Again, I’m sorry.” I wince and swallow past the nausea that’s migrating up my throat. “I just got off a nine-hour bus ride where I was sandwiched between two people who found camaraderie in chatting about politics and a driver who must’ve gotten her license from NASCAR. It’s been a bad day, an even worse week, and it’s hot, and while I know my methods for trying to get your attention weren’t ideal, I’m just…I’m trying to get into Red Bridge.”
He might as well be made of stone.
“Again, I sincerely apologize.” I continue to try to win him over. “I’m not generally this much of a mess. Normally, I have it together, I swear. It’s just that the bus driver dropped me off out here, and I’m starting to question if they’ve moved the town. I don’t know the logistics that are involved with moving an entire town, no matter if it’s the size of a shoebox or not, but I can imagine it would take, like, NASA engineers. And permits. Lots of permits. Everything needs permits these days, you know?” I joke and offer an encouraging “go ahead and laugh with me because I’m really funny, right?” kind of laugh, but it comes out all stilted and stroppy because I’m talking a million miles a minute and my lungs are having a hard time keeping up and I’m starting to wonder if I should be muzzled. Or sedated. Either would probably work.
Get it together, Norah. Do not make this more awkward for this guy than you already have.
The man behind the wheel looks to be midthirties, is definitely attractive, but he’s also big and kind of intimidating. A real brute of a man. He could play hockey or football and certainly gets more than enough protein every day. For all I know, his favorite pastime includes lifting big, heavy things for fun.
If we were back in the Stone Age, he’d be the alpha of the tribe, his brow and nose and chin all screaming “marble-cut barbarian.”
It also looks like he hasn’t shaved in at least a month. He has thick brown hair that’s showcasing an “I just run my fingers through it” kind of style, and splatters of pastel-colored paint mar the skin on his hands.
Basically, he’s attractive in a can-make-women-turn-feral kind of way. Still intimidating as all get-out, but definitely good-looking.
I bet he’s the type of guy who tears your panties and throws you up against the wall when he wants to make you come. And when he does make you come—
“You need a ride or what?”
His question is an abrupt snap of fingers in front of my face.
“Wh-what?” I pause and silently pray I heard him correctly. “You’ll give me a ride?”
“You threw your body in front of my truck,” he states without humor. “Anyone that desperate gets a lift to the town square, at least.”
Hold the phone. I didn’t throw my body in front of anything. I stepped in front of his truck. Walked to the middle of the road. Calmly made my presence known. But I definitely didn’t throw my body in front of his vehicle like some kind of desperate woman being chased by Michael Myers with a chainsaw.