Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77106 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Blue was a lucky dog.
And if his owner ever decided to have a baby, that would be one spoiled kid.
“You ready to go…” I paused, waiting for Blue to turn back and look at me, ears up, “swimming?”
He nearly ripped off my arm in his eagerness to get back home and splash around in the pool.
Did I maybe turn on the hose and soak my legs and wipe down Lainey too? Sure did.
It was a long, hot day, and Blue was our last walk. I was looking forward to going home, stripping out of my sweaty clothes, and taking a cold shower. Hopefully, one of the shirts I’d hand-washed in the sink would be clean to wear in case of some last-minute deliveries.
I hadn’t exactly been slouching prior to The Incident. But I’d been going above and beyond to use work to try to shut up my brain.
It had been a week to the day since that whole situation. I still felt like my body was trying to metabolize all that adrenaline I’d felt. I’d been antsy and jumpy. And while sleeplessness was the norm for me since I found out I was pregnant and that my whole life was about to change, I’d barely been managing three hours—with maybe a short catnap in the middle—since that night.
I was running on coffee from the dollar store made in a machine that had a dubious amount of electrical tape holding the cord together and the bone-deep need to do better for us. So that maybe I wouldn’t be doing jobs late at night in weird areas of town where all sorts of bad things apparently happened.
I’d been checking the news and true crime channels online to see if anyone was covering the man who’d been beaten and shot in an alley in Golden Glades.
But I got no results.
This man wasn’t a blip on anyone’s radar.
Meanwhile, his image was burned into my brain. And right beside him, the men who’d chased me through the streets, ready to—what—silence me for good? Then do what to my baby? The same? Something worse?
My mind had been running wild with worst-case scenarios. Everything from human trafficking to being sold for parts.
Your mind could go to really dark places when you were solely responsible for a precious, helpless life in a big, scary world you knew was full of bad people with worse intentions.
“That’s a good boy,” I told Blue as I handed him his favorite stuffy then pulled one of his blankets up over his wet body. “We’ll see you after the weekend, okay? Have fun with your mom at the p-a-r-k tomorrow.”
I maybe walked slowly through Blue’s house on the way back out. Not slow enough to look like I was casing the joint—since I knew there were nanny cams around—but just slowly enough that I could really take it all in.
This was my dream house.
Even if, objectively, I knew I could never afford one as large as this one, it had all the features I loved. The warm white stucco outside, the cool tile within. The abundance of little rugs and runners for slippery dog feet—or toddlers learning to crawl.
Sun poured in through the windows, but the air kept the place cool almost to the point of chilly.
The kitchen sported lots of storage and a fancy range with eight burners, two ovens, and one of those espresso machines that cost almost a grand.
I loved good coffee.
And I missed cooking and baking.
I vowed that by the time Lainey was eating solid food, I would have us in a place with a kitchen.
I made my way out the back door, checking to make sure the gate locked, then turned on the car to cool off as I broke down the stroller and shoved it into the trunk.
“Let’s hope our air is working better today than yesterday,” I told Lainey as I clicked her car seat into the base, then got in myself, letting the cool air dry some of the sweat on my skin.
I liked the warm.
I even liked the humidity sometimes.
But it had been bordering on dangerously hot the past few days.
I’d been working with the owners of the dogs to walk in the off-peak hours of the day, stressing how bad heat stroke was for dogs—which was true—while also being worried about me and Lainey.
And most of the dogs, even energetic Blue, were dragging in the heat, so we took a lot of breaks under trees or in shade. Even, occasionally, dipping into pet stores to walk around in the air conditioning.
It wouldn’t last forever.
The heatwave would break.
Then the walks would be nice again.
Besides, it didn’t matter.
All that mattered was the money that was coming in. And, for once, I actually had a little bit leftover at the end of this week. If I took a few extra delivery jobs over the weekend when there were no dog walking clients, I could pad that bottom line even more.