Total pages in book: 17
Estimated words: 15404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 77(@200wpm)___ 62(@250wpm)___ 51(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 15404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 77(@200wpm)___ 62(@250wpm)___ 51(@300wpm)
"Here, come inside," she suggests, as she goes to put an arm around me and steer me into the house. But I shrug her off at once, pulling back as though I can undo this.
"Don’t - don’t touch me," I protest, my voice cracking as I force the words out. "You’re lying to me! I don’t know why, but you’re lying to me..."
"I’m not lying, hon," she promises me, and she seems to be taking this with surprising ease. "I’m telling you the truth. Why don’t you come inside, and we can-"
"No!” I exclaim once more. "No, you can’t just – you can’t just talk like this is normal. I was in the twenty-first century two hours ago, and now..."
"Hey!”
A voice cuts across my protests, and I look up in time to see Cade striding towards us, his face twisted into a mask of anger.
"Don’t talk to my sister like that," he growls to me, stepping in between us. All at once, a flush of panic moves through me – this man is strong, there’s no doubt about it, and if he decides that he doesn’t like me, he could have me out on my ass in a matter of seconds.
And here I am, railing against his sister like I’ve got anywhere else to go, like there’s anywhere else in the world I could belong in the face of all of this madness.
For a moment, I consider standing up to him, telling him that I’m not going to indulge his sister’s madness any more than I want to go along with whatever else the people of this town seem to have pulled together.
But, as he glares down at me, his brow furrowed, his gray eyes piercing straight through me, his jaw clenched – I know I’d be stupid to put up a fight.
I don’t know what is going on here. I don’t know how the hell I am going to be able to fix it, if there’s any way to put it right at all. But what I do know is that these people might be the only thing I have in the way of allies in this moment, and I’d be the worst kind of stupid to ignore that.
"I – I'm sorry," I mutter, lowering my gaze to the ground. Lucy, pressing her lips together, brushes her brother aside and takes my arm.
"It’s okay," she promises me. "Come on in, we’ll get you something to eat. Won’t we, Cade?”
I look back to her brother – but the way he is looking at me, I get the feeling that he is still not entirely convinced that he wants me around at all.
Shit, that makes two of us.
CHAPTER 2
Cade
"Morning," Lucy chirps to me, as she makes her way into the kitchen, her eyes bright, her hair freshly braided. She looks as though she’s slept well, which is more than I can say for myself, given the circumstances.
I don’t reply as I push a cup of coffee towards her, which she accepts gratefully, lifting it to her lips and taking a sip. She eyes me over the top of the cup, and, much to my annoyance, I’m sure she can tell what’s going on inside my head right now.
"What’s your problem?” she asks, not cruelly. I glance to the stairs.
"The stray you took in last night."
She cocks an eyebrow and smirks slightly.
"Come on, Cade, you know as well as I do she wouldn’t have lasted a day out there in the prairie," she protests. "We couldn’t just leave her out there, it wouldn’t have been right. Besides, I saw the way you looked at her..."
"What the hell does that mean?”
"Oh, come on, you know what it means," she teases. I don’t want to admit she’s right, but I’ll be damned if my sister doesn’t know me well enough to see right through me. For as much as I want to believe that I could contain it at a single glance, there’s a part of me that can’t help but respond to the way that girl looked, her long legs, her sweet, hopeful smile when she came to us asking for help.
"Don’t know a damn thing about it."
She rolls her eyes skyward.
"Sure, sure," she replies, waving a hand. "Either way, I couldn’t just pretend I didn’t see her."
"Could have. Could have let her be someone else’s problem."
She lets out a short puff of air through her nose, clearly not impressed with my attitude. But that’s not my problem. She knows that we don’t have a whole lot to our names, not since Momma passed, and the last thing we need is to add more to that pile and cause ourselves even more trouble in the process.
"Yes, and what kind of person do you think would have seen a woman alone at the side of the road and decided that they were going to take care of her?” she points out. "It wouldn’t have been right. You know it’s not what Momma would have done."