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)
Tina canted her head and assessed her keenly. “You’re not very good at accepting help, are you?”
“My biggest flaw,” Kenny admitted with an abashed little shrug. Tina grinned at her candor.
“It’s not an imposition at all, Kenny,” the woman said. “Please let me help you.”
Kenny hesitated. What else did she have to do? Nothing. Despite her bravado and assurances to both Smith and Tina, the prospect of cleaning this place—especially with an injured foot—was daunting. She’d also need to order the cleaning supplies before she could get started anyway.
“Smith won’t like it.”
“Smith doesn’t get to dictate my—or your—friendships.”
“I’m trying to be fair, Tina,” Kenny whispered, her voice heavy with regret. “Trying to respect his wishes and his space. It’s bad enough I’ve come here and that I’m staying despite the fact that he’s clearly unhappy about it.”
Tina nodded, her green eyes—so similar to Smith’s—brimming with sympathy.
“I understand,” she said, then reached out to squeeze Kenny’s hand. “I’m just a phone call or text message away. The landlord, Mr. Dickens, will forward the lease agreement to you later. I’ll text a list of cleaning companies and delivery services. Our local grocery store delivers as well.”
“Thank you.”
Tina sucked her lower lip into her mouth as she stared at Kenny in concern.
“You sure you’ll be okay?” Her eyes drifted to the walking cast.
“Yes.”
“Don’t overdo it, okay?”
“I won’t.” Her hand tightened around Tina’s for a moment before releasing the other woman. “Tina, thank you. I know we haven’t been on the friendliest of terms…and I know that it’s my fault. So it means a lot that you’re willing to help me.”
Tina scoffed.
“Go easy on the self-recrimination, okay? I don’t know exactly what’s going on between you and Smith, but I feel like you’ve accepted an unfair share of the blame. Also, quite honestly, I could have tried harder myself. But I’m socially awkward and so are you, so it was bound to be a shitshow of misunderstandings.”
Kenny chuckled and the sound ended on a little sob.
“I do cultivate a do not touch air. I always thought it was better for people to think I was a rampant, ice-cold bitch than to recognize that I’m just never sure how to get along with people. Other women especially.”
They shared an understanding smile upon finally seeing that their similarities outweighed their differences.
“Right, I have to get going,” Tina said. “Libby’s going to murder me if I’m late for this meeting.”
Libby—Olivia Chapman—was Tina’s best friend, sister-in-law, and the head chef at her restaurant.
Kenny nodded and watched as the other woman left in a flurry of movement and warm smiles.
As Tina drove off with a cheerful honk, Kenny sank down onto the rickety old porch swing—seriously, did every house in this town have one of these?—alone, lonely, and suddenly filled with self-doubt and regret.
Why was she staying here?
Nobody aside from Tina thought she should be here. Part of Kenny knew that they were right.
But, as she had told her brothers, she was tired. She needed to regroup and recover. And this place right here was where she was going to do that.
“Fuck!” Smith glared down at the hook snagged in the heel of his hand. He muffled a few more swear words as he carefully manipulated the barbless hook from his flesh.
It stung like a sonofabitch.
His own fault for not paying attention to what he was doing. He didn’t even like fishing, he’d just needed to get out of the house for a while.
It still smelled like her.
Sheer desperation had driven him to picking up the fishing rod and tackle box he’d discovered in the small garden shed and driving to this best ever—according to Harris and his buddies—fishing spot at the estuary which had given the town its name.
He hadn’t hooked a fucking thing all morning. Aside from his own damned self, of course.
He wrapped a dirty rag—also courtesy of the tackle box—around his bleeding hand and packed up everything, stifling the frustrated urge to toss the lot into the river. But this wasn’t his stuff and it wouldn’t be very environmentally friendly of him.
He’d hoped that this activity would prove therapeutic. Take his mind off everything. Instead, he’d been bored to death with nothing to do but think. About Kenna, their failed marriage, and her confusing and infuriating insistence on remaining in town.
Worse, he had taken one look at that place she was so eager to rent and despised the very notion of Kenna staying in that dusty, moldy hovel.
It had taken every ounce of his willpower not to drag her kicking and screaming back to his own tiny rental.
He was seething as he lugged the equipment back to his vehicle. Resentful of the fact that her mere presence in town was already fucking with his peace of mind. He angrily tossed everything in the back of the car, muttering under his breath.