Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 101466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
I headed for the kitchen, needing coffee. I stepped into the chief’s office to wish him a safe trip since he was leaving on holidays the next morning. He waved me in, smiling in thanks at my words.
“Whatever you’re doing different, Thorne, keep it up.”
“Sir?” I asked.
“You’re smiling more. I heard you tell a joke last night.”
“Oh, ah…” I scrubbed the back of my neck.
He chuckled. “Whatever or whoever it is, I like it.”
I left, wondering if anyone else noticed a change. I didn’t think I was any different, although constant lovemaking with a sexy tenant certainly helped my mood.
That had to be it.
I had poured a cup of coffee and sat down before I realized I had called it lovemaking.
It was sex. Just sex.
Slip of the tongue.
That made me grin.
Alan—or the probie, as everyone called him—walked in, pouring a coffee. “Hey.”
I lifted my chin in acknowledgment.
He swung a leg over a chair, facing me. “I just want to say thanks for all the extra work you and Mark have been putting in with me.”
I nodded. “Someone did the same for us.”
“I appreciate it. We’re not on the next roster together.”
“No, Chief likes to mix it up. Make sure we can all work together.”
“You can bring Miller.”
“Maybe. He’s got a…sitter now he likes. I might leave it as is.” I knew Casey liked having him around. She had mentioned it in passing once that she felt safer with him there.
“The house seems so big when you’re gone,” she whispered in one of our late-night chats. “Miller makes me feel not so alone.”
I didn’t want to take that from her.
I stood, deciding to go and finish up some paperwork to end the shift. With any luck, there’d be no calls and I would be home in a few hours. I clapped Alan on the shoulder.
“See you around, probie.”
But as I crossed the station, I looked over at Martha, who was hanging up the phone. She gestured to me, waiting until I was at the desk to talk.
“Lila just called.”
“And?” I asked. Lila called a lot. Stray animals, a branch on a tree hanging too low, a stranger in the neighborhood. She was lonely and liked to talk, and she used every opportunity to call Martha.
“Um, she noticed something.”
“Aliens?”
She shook her head. “She says there’s a person stuck in a tree. She heard a call for help.”
I groaned. So much for no calls. “Where? On the street? In the woods? Bloody kids know they shouldn’t climb them.”
Martha was fighting a smile. “Not the street.”
“Where, then?”
“Your backyard.”
I gaped at her. “Someone is in my—” I stopped.
And right then, I knew who that person was.
It was a woman.
And her name was Casey.
CASEY
I sat on the back deck, enjoying the breeze. We were having the perfect weather. Warm and lovely, but not hot and sticky the way Ontario summers could be. It was only June, and I knew those times would come soon enough.
In the meantime, I was loving the days we had. I took a sip of my iced tea, the lemon and lime flavor I added giving it a great tang. Idly, I wondered if Thorne would like it.
A shiver went through me at the thought of Thorne coming home. I hoped he’d missed me the way I missed him.
I liked the new dynamic, although it was a little confusing. We agreed no strings, no relationship, yet he’d kept me close after we’d started this agreement. I’d even slept in his bed the last two nights before he left for his shift, wrapped in his arms, unable to leave. Both mornings, he’d fed me breakfast, then sent me through the closet with a kiss to my forehead, telling me to stay out of trouble as if he was used to sending me off to work every day. And his antics at the grocery store had been amusing and sweet, even though I gave him shit about it. He wasn’t acting the way I expected him to. It was almost as if he cared.
It was all still new, though, and I was sure that would wear off quickly.
I watched the wind move the branches of the tree in the corner of the property. It was a massive oak tree and had seemed tall when I was a child. It was majestic and full, providing shade and a lovely canopy of green.
A memory I had forgotten stirred. Lou loved to craft things—something I swore I got from her since my mother could barely sew a straight line and hated all things glue and glitter.
Lou and I had spent a rainy day making wind chimes. Not just any wind chimes. These were long, cascading streams of color. Lou filed the sides of broken bottles in blues, greens, and clear until she was certain the edges wouldn’t cut us. We added glitter, making them extra sparkly. We covered bottle caps in bright ribbon, adding twigs and pieces of metal she had from other projects. She had some old bells we attached in key places, once having decided on the length of our musical hanger. We put beads of glue with clear glitter on long pieces of string so they looked like water drops, shimmering in the sun. Then we constructed the longest “wind chime” and carried it out to the backyard the next day when the sun was out. Together, we climbed a ladder and scaled the tree, draping our beautiful creation over the branches, turning the tree into a spectacular display of imagination and color. We shimmied down and stood back, admiring our handiwork. The breeze shook the branches, the glass and metal making clanging sounds, and the twigs hit the bells, making them ring out in song.