Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 99604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99604 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
I sighed. “Why are men so stubborn?”
“Couldn’t tell you that, Anna.” McCracken gave a quick grin before stepping back.
Time stretched. My sisters arrived with more cousins in tow. Then the Basanelli family came in force, crowding the room. The fluorescent lights hummed, and the smell of coffee from the vending machine did nothing to help the weight pressing on my chest.
After an hour I couldn’t stand it anymore. “I can’t breathe,” I said to Dad. “I’m going outside.”
“You want me to come?”
“No, thanks.” I stopped by the sheriff on my way out. “Sheriff.”
Franco looked up, lines of exhaustion and pain carved into the sides of his mouth. “What can I do for you, Anna?”
“You can sit down,” I said. “I can’t worry about you and Aiden at the same time. It’s too much.” My voice cracked.
He blinked and then sighed. “Well, geez, if it’ll make you happy.” He limped toward an empty chair and dropped into it, not quite hiding a groan.
“Men,” I muttered and pushed through the doors.
Outside, rain hammered the pavement. I stood beneath the overhang as water poured in sheets off the roof, hitting the concrete with a steady hiss. The air smelled of ozone and pine needles crushed under tires.
My sisters followed, flanking me like sentries.
“He’ll be okay,” Tessa said, her gaze fixed on the storm.
“I hope so,” I whispered. “He didn’t move, Tess.”
Donna slipped an arm around my shoulders. “It’s Aiden.”
Yeah. It was. In my mind, he was invincible. Nothing got to Aiden.
“I couldn’t move him,” I admitted quietly. “I tried.”
Rain battered the parking lot, thunder rolled again over the mountains, and I stood there between my sisters, waiting for the first sign that he’d made it through.
“He is solid muscle,” Tessa said, nudging me gently. “You like that, remember?”
“Yeah, but I wish I could’ve moved him faster,” I mumbled. My throat ached. “I don’t even know what his injuries were. He just didn’t move. He’s in surgery, and I don’t even know what they’re operating on. Something must have broken inside him.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. The storm had quieted some, but rain still sheeted across the parking lot, pooling around the yellow lines and reflecting the flashing hospital lights. The mountains beyond Timber City were lost in a smear of gray.
A silver truck rolled to a stop near the overhang, headlights cutting through the downpour. The driver’s door opened, and Cormac Coretti jumped out, striding toward us. Water streamed from his coat and hit the pavement in steady drops. “I heard Devlin got hurt,” he said.
“Yeah,” I answered. “What are you doing here?”
He shook his head, rain dripping from his hair. “Rumor has it the tunnel beneath the carousel gave out.”
I blinked, caught off guard. “You knew about the tunnel?”
“Yeah. I was going to search it tonight for the boxes.”
Donna’s mouth tightened. “How did you know about that? Did you set the dynamite?”
“Of course not.” Cormac lifted both hands, palms open. His greenish-blue eyes were clear even in the gray light, and the rain didn’t seem to bother him, even as it plastered his hair flat against his head. “I’ve been researching all of Silverville,” he said. “Might’ve hacked into the CCTV feed nearby.”
“So you knew about those tunnels?” I asked.
“I suspected,” he said. “I was planning to look tonight, and now I’ve heard all about them. Did you find the boxes?”
Fire lanced through me. “Why?” I demanded.
He raised a hand. “I’m just asking. I know there’s no word on Devlin yet.”
“How do you know that?” Tessa asked sharply.
Cormac’s mouth twitched. “I know things.”
Donna crossed her arms. “You know things. You find things. Who the hell are you?”
“I’m just somebody who wants to help right now,” he admitted. “Did you find the silver nugget boxes?”
“Yes,” I said before I could stop myself. Both of my sisters jolted. I looked between them, realizing how far my thoughts had drifted. “I forgot all about finding them in the tunnels. We threw them in Dad’s trunk.” None of the day even seemed real. “All I could think about was Aiden.”
“That’s what you should be thinking about,” Donna said, her voice edged with loyalty and frustration.
The rain picked up again, hammering against the metal awning. The smell of wet pine filled the air, sharp and clean.
The hospital doors opened, releasing a puff of warm, antiseptic air, and my cousin Rory stepped out. “Hey, I just wanted to check on you.” He stopped short when his gaze landed on Cormac. “Cormac?”
Cormac blinked once. “Rory.”
I looked from one to the other. “You two know each other?”
In a weirdly synchronized move, they both shoved their thumbs into their jeans pockets.
“Nope,” they said together.
I glared at my cousin. Rory was the one of six boys from Uncle Buddy and Aunt Yara, who’d recently adopted Violet. Nobody really knew what Rory did for a living, but the family rumor leaned heavily toward the CIA.