Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56278 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56278 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
I smashed my lips together and clenched my jaw.
“My hope is to convince you to go back to school,” he went on.
The anxiousness was instant, putting a noose around my throat and raising my hackles. Talking about work and school tended to make me defensive, and no fucking wonder. I refused to admit out loud I was stupid. I’d rather let them think I was reckless and not interested.
There was nothing wrong with my fucking priorities. I was just too dumb to get decent grades. I couldn’t focus, my spelling was shit, and teachers hated me. I was doomed to fail at everything. Meanwhile, when I’d joined the Winters family at the age of nine, Chris and Wade had been old enough. Chris had earned his degree in forensic science and worked in private security, and Wade had been a decorated soldier who’d once abandoned med school because of 9/11.
“Quinlan wants to pay for it, you know,” Wade added. “If you move back home.”
I swallowed against the nausea that thickened my throat, and it took all my strength to remain calm. I couldn’t let him see me lash out or react too strongly, because he’d put two and two together.
It’d been a full-time job to hide my failures from them. Mostly Wade and Dad.
The only thing that had ever worked for me was distance. I’d recognized it from the day I’d moved in with them as a pissed-off kid. I couldn’t get too close.
CHAPTER 2
February 19th, 2021
Kayden Winters
Isat right up in bed when I heard Wade curse outside the bedroom.
This wasn’t going to work.
He hadn’t reacted the way I’d anticipated about the bedroom situation. He’d simply moved his shit out to the living room and let me sleep in the bed, which just made me come off as an asshole.
The fucker was killing me with kindness—in that arena anyway.
It’d been three days of reluctantly getting crap done to prepare for the mother of all winter storms.
I was dragging my feet, doing the bare minimum. He was up at five every morning to take the dogs out with the four-wheeler, and he didn’t return until a few hours later. Then he made breakfast. Always scrambled eggs, oatmeal, and some kind of meat, usually caribou or rabbit. And after that…he got started. He was reinforcing the exterior of the boathouse, he was building a new shed behind the cabin, he was cleaning his guns, he was making traps for hunting small game, and he was collecting water.
The water in the stream was, in his words, cleaner than the water we had at home, but he filtered it to be safe. Out here, you didn’t wanna get sick.
He hadn’t given me many chores outside of tidying up, making sure the firewood crate stayed full, and occasionally feeding the dogs.
Today, he was going to inspect the insulation in the dog shed.
I was going to struggle with my guilt, I guessed…
The fucker knew what he was doing to me.
Yesterday, I had watched him with the dogs. We’d had a conversation free from awkwardness and tension when he told me how he’d adopted them, their names, and his initial worry for letting them sleep outside.
“They’re workin’ dogs—they’re supposed to be outdoors—and the locals make fun of me when I fuss over them.”
“There are locals here?”
Spoiler alert: there were no locals. But there was a wilderness retreat an hour south, where we’d landed with the outdated bush plane. Wade apparently headed down there sometimes for a bite to eat, some social interaction, and trading stuff. Like dead birds in exchange for a bottle of whiskey or caribou meat in exchange for vegetables.
Wade liked it up here. That much was clear.
“You don’t get lonely?”
“Sometimes, but it passes. Besides, I have them.” He nodded at the dogs and smiled. The alpha dog, Atlas, was munching on a fish. Like, an actual fish. Wade threw frozen fish in there every day. Kibble was like a small side dish here. They received meat, fish, and their by-products, and fat mixed with homemade bone broth.
The only girl dog, ironically named Cat, was the one Wade spoiled occasionally. She liked apple slices soaked in duck fat—when the season allowed it.
Sounded delicious.
I heard the telltale sounds of Wade filling his thermos and a water bottle, which meant he was on his way out the door.
I waited until he had left before I crawled out of bed to start my day.
My guilt couldn’t handle any more laziness and defiance, no matter how badly I wanted to get out of here.
Had it been Chris up here, I would’ve let my anger run wild for longer. He and I had more of a brotherly relationship, with the usual ribbing and whatnot. Wade was different.
When I’d been released from jail, Chris had been there to hug me tightly, smack me upside the head, and say that the whole ordeal was over and done with. Wade had spent the past three days asking questions about my time in lockup. Mostly to see if I had any trauma from it. But I couldn’t say that I did. I’d kind of expected nightmares and reacting to new sounds and structures, but I just hadn’t spent enough time behind bars.