Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Change arrives when a pack of shifters buys the land that borders his. He doesn’t think twice about them until his simple rules are ignored, and suddenly there’s conflict. One of the wolves, Cole Swann, is very interested in him, and surprisingly, Merritt can’t seem to get the man out of his head. But things aren’t what they seem, and between other packs, ghosts, and worst of all, love, Merritt might be in over his head. That’s the thing about being lost—it can be wonderful when you’re finally found, but is it worth the risk of losing yourself?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
EARLY…
Iwasn’t sleeping. I hadn’t been lately. And really, I didn’t much anymore, not like I used to when the world was quieter. But I missed it, noticed it, and could say with absolute conviction that usually, not being able to rest signaled a change. Normally, there were small shifts, nothing seismic, not anymore. But because my restlessness could either be good or bad, I was anxious. My roommate, Ondine, was gone, so there was no one at home for me to talk to, and another friend who occasionally haunted my sunroom when it got colder, wasn’t around either, so I was out, alone, first checking the edges of my property before moving farther toward town.
It was early in the morning, somewhere between one and two, so the screaming caught my attention immediately. It was easily half a mile away, but sounds traveled strangely in the woods, especially when most in our small town were sleeping.
When I reached the trailer, which was a mile down the road from my property, I saw that all the lights were on. I headed around the side to the window and saw Missy Harrington, who worked days at the local market while her daughter was in school, sitting in the front room, hair mussed, lip split, nose bleeding, eye bruised, rocking her daughter and a small black-and-white puppy in the chair with her. The way she was clutching them tight told me that either the child, the puppy, or both could be the target of the man who was pacing back and forth in front of her, yelling.
The little girl—her daughter, Katey, who I knew from all the times she’d bounced into my restaurant for a cinnamon roll after school—was trembling and crying. The puppy was watching the man, shivering, but not making a sound.
“What did I tell you I was gonna do to that dog if he pissed in the house again?” James Harrington growled at his wife.
“He’s just a puppy,” she whispered. “He has to be trained.”
He charged toward her, and he would have hit his wife, but Katey cried out in terror.
“You want something to cry about?” he roared at his daughter. “How about I give you somethin’ to cry about.”
Missy put her hand over her daughter’s head and turned her face toward her. “Just me, Jimmy,” she begged. “Please.”
He clenched his fist, and I moved to the porch and knocked.
“What the hell?” he yelled, charging across the floor. I couldn’t see him from my angle, of course, but I could hear every step. The man had a distinct sound to his gait when he was drunk—his work boots on the wooden floor made a scratching noise—and he was very drunk. I could hear it in the slur of his words, but more importantly, unless he was at work on the road crew, picking up dead animals struck by cars or clearing debris, he was nearly always drunk. Many a time I had covered groceries for Missy when beer or whiskey had been purchased instead of milk or cheese or hamburger meat.
The door flew open, and it took him a second to process me standing there.
“Merritt?”
“James,” I said flatly before I grabbed him by his jacket, yanked him off his feet and out the door, then shoved him over the railing of the porch.
The fall wasn’t far, but he was winded even from hitting the sliver of grass around the trailer. Farther down the hill they lived on were various cars and cages that used to have dogs in them before the state police came and shut down his backyard breeding operation six months ago. That had been me as well. Other people were afraid of James, as he had a mean temper and more than a few equally mean friends, but no one in their right mind was messing with me, so the duty to protect the dogs had fallen to me. I had not failed them.
“Merritt, you son of a whore!” he yelled. Or tried to yell. It came out raspy, all the air having left his lungs.
“Hey,” I greeted the woman, the little girl, and the puppy. “You have bags packed, yes?”
Missy just stared at me.
I crossed the room and crouched down in front of her. “Dear, do we have bags packed?”
She nodded quickly.
“Let’s grab them, and I’ll help you put them in the car.”
“I… Merritt, what are you doing here?”
I never understood the need to clarify the why of something in the middle of emergency situations. Why was it important why I was there?
“I wanna go with Mere,” Katey said shakily, on the verge of tears. We were old friends with how many times she’d been in my restaurant. “Daddy’s gonna kill Lucky.”
“No, he’s not,” I murmured to the little girl, who turned and dove into my arms. “But we do need to go.”