Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74554 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
CHAPTER FOUR
Kylo
She was a terrible liar.
I followed her out of the greenhouse and toward the shop again, wondering what she was lying to cover up. That she was some international arms dealer?
The thought was so absurd that I almost laughed aloud.
No one who met this woman would think she even understood how to use a gun, let alone how to source one from other countries.
Sure, some people who were in illegal trades were surprisingly normal. Others also were good enough actors that they could pretend to lie poorly to mask the fact that they were masters of it.
I didn’t think that was the case for Rue.
There’d been something vulnerable in her eyes. It was gone in a flash, but it had been there.
I was pretty sure she wasn’t in on the shipments. At least not willingly. But my feelings weren’t going to be evidence enough for McCoy or Huck.
By the time I left the store, I had three new plants, pots, moisture meters, a watering can shaped like an elephant, fertilizer, and a macramé plant hanger, since one of my plants was going to ‘trail’ eventually.
I put everything into the trunk, got in the driver’s seat, turned on the air, then finally let out the breath I’d been half-holding since the second I’d walked into that shop.
I might not have known who I was expecting.
But I did know it wasn’t Rue.
I’d been walking in, maybe figuring it was more of a middle-aged or older woman, possibly someone in a rainbow skirt with lots of necklaces and gemstone bracelets.
I definitely wasn’t prepared for a woman a little younger than me with her red-brown hair, sharp features, stormy eyes, and lips just begging to be kissed, wearing a worn pair of overalls with nothing underneath but a yellow bra that was not hiding the fact that she thought the air was on just a little too high for her comfort.
I’d wanted more time to talk to her. To, you know, feel shit out. Not any other reason. But when we got back into the shop, her assistant had been the one to guide the conversation.
The guy was nice but as subtle as a brick. He kept trying to find common interests between myself and Rue. He’d gotten desperate enough to harp on the fact that we both liked coffee and dogs.
I didn’t go right back to the clubhouse after I left, though.
No, I turned off the road toward it and drove down the block to a small neighborhood of new townhouses.
I’d seen the sign go up about two years before.
The price on them just so happened to be the exact amount of money I had sitting in a safety deposit box. Money that kept coming in for my work at the club that I had nothing to spend on, since the food and bills were all paid for by Huck.
It felt like a nudge from some higher power, like the universe itself understood that some part of me was reaching for something that was my own again.
As much as I loved the club and the brotherhood I found there, I’d always been someone who had to take care of themself, who always had a place and plan of my own.
Really, the only thing wrong about it was the fact that I hadn’t told the club about it.
I knew keeping secrets and shit like that wasn’t allowed. At first, as the townhouses were being built, some part of me felt like there was nothing to tell Huck and the others because I didn’t technically have a house yet.
It had only been about two months since the house was finished. Less time, even, since I had the paperwork signed and a key in my hand.
Once Huck was back, I was going to have to tell him. However uncomfortable that might be.
I followed the winding street through sets of townhouses grouped in fours, each with slightly different façades, though the pattern repeated with each group.
Full red brick front, white siding front, full gray brick front, gray siding front. Shower, rinse, repeat. The only differences were the personal touches and the cars in the driveway.
I lucked out with a full red brick, which meant I got to be the corner lot. There was a slightly bigger lawn, though I didn’t really care about that. I liked that there were only neighbors to one side, not leaving me sandwiched between other houses.
I pulled up the driveway, seeing nothing but lines on my lawn, thanks to the service that was paid for through our HOA fees. My house was the blandest in the neighborhood. It seemed like everyone else got their keys then got right to work making the exterior distinct—wreaths on the doors, bright, happy flowers in the beds, novelty mailboxes, or solar lights.
Mine, by contrast, looked like no one lived there.