Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
The flat, emotionless delivery of those devastating words slammed into her with the force of a semi-truck. And there was simply no coming back from that.
“Okay,” she whispered, her voice hoarse and inaudible above the sound of the Land Rover’s engine. She cleared her throat and raised her voice to repeat the word.
“Okay. I—” She stopped talking. It didn’t matter that she had more to say. It didn’t matter how she felt. He didn’t care to hear it or know it. She lapsed into silence. , hands so tightly clasped in her lap, they were going numb.
They reached the turn back onto the asphalt road, and the sudden smoothness of the ride was jarring after the bone-rattling discomfort of the last twenty minutes.
“You really could have gotten into serious trouble back there.” Smith finally broke the silence after a few minutes on the asphalt.
“I could’ve died,” she intoned bleakly. “I only had one bottle of water.”
“Stop saying that,” he told her sharply. “You would have been a little uncomfortable for a day or so, but we would’ve found you.”
“No. I’d have wandered off looking for help and gotten myself eaten by a leopard. Or bitten by a snake.”
“Since when are you this fatalistic?” Now he sounded almost amused.
“Since always. My dad used to call me his little cloud of doom and gloom. I always wanted to be his—or anyone’s, really—ray of sunshine.” Her voice was starting to slur and she sounded distant even to herself. “But that’s not in me, I guess.”
Kenny yawned. She was so tired her eyelids felt weighted down and she was having a hard time focusing. She yawned again. She just needed to rest her eyes for a little bit and she’d feel much better, she was sure. More capable of dealing with Smith’s indifference.
Chapter
Seven
“Kenna!” Smith’s deep baritone snatched her out of an uncomfortable sleep and she snapped upright in the seat, gasping when the seatbelt pulled painfully taut against her chest.
“What?”
“We’re here.”
“Where? The hotel?” She unbuckled her seatbelt and craned her neck to get a look at her surroundings. She didn’t see a hotel, only a smallish cottage.
“How quaint,” she exclaimed. “Is it a boutique hotel?”
He undid his own belt and shook his head, the expression on his face grim.
“Look, this is a popular tourist town, at the height of summer. All accommodations have been fully booked for months. You’re going to have to stay with me.”
“Oh no.” The prospect of sharing with Smith after everything he’d said just a short while earlier filled her with horror. “I-I couldn’t possibly impose on you in that way. What about the next town over? Or Knysna? I know it’s a longer drive, but…”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why drive that distance when we have a perfectly viable solution right here?”
“But…”
“Kenna, I’m not driving to Knysna. And you can’t drive. So give it a rest, okay? We can share space for one fucking night like reasonable adults.”
She swallowed down another protest and nodded reluctantly.
“You’re right,” she said through stiff lips, then forced a smile. “It’s not like this is some hokey, rom-commy one-bed situation.”
He grimaced and her eyes widened in alarm.
“It isn’t, right?”
“It’s not a very big cottage, Kenna. One bedroom. And, uh…one bed.”
“I’ll take the couch,” she said in resignation, bracing herself for protests, but she’d have to insist. He was only a few inches taller than her, but he was much broader and the couch would—
“Damned straight, you’ll take the couch,” he said, shocking her from the counterarguments she’d been preparing. “I didn’t ask you to come here and I’m not about to let you oust me from my bed. Again.”
Again?
“Now hold on a second, Smith! I never ousted you from our bed, you wan—”
“Ancient history,” he cut her off rudely.
“Clearly not, since you just brought it up.”
“Only to strengthen my claim on my own damned bed.”
“I didn’t expect you to give up your bed for me.” But she had expected him to want to.
“Good.”
“Great.”
After that weak comeback from her, he shoved open the car door and rounded the bonnet before she could so much as blink, and had the passenger door open a second later.
“Come on.” He held a hand out to her palm up and she stared at it for a few seconds before lifting her eyes to his face. He raised an eyebrow and waggled his fingers in an imperious beckoning movement that for some reason really raised her hackles.
“I’m not a dog,” she muttered resentfully and he stared at her in absolute confusion.
“What the hell are you talking about? Give me your hand so that I can help you into the damned house.”
Oh.
She kept forgetting about her toe, even though the pain was ever present and building with every passing moment.
Feeling foolish, she meekly placed her hand into his and he helped her from the stupidly high car before once again swinging her up into his arms.