Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
I followed her line of sight and scowled.
“What is it?”
“The receptionist for the sheriff’s department, Kelly Waller,” I grumbled. “You answer it. I’m not here.”
“What?” she squawked. “I can’t answer the door to someone you work with!”
I left, leaving them both there.
She could answer it or not, I didn’t care.
I whipped off the t-shirt that I had on and tossed it into the laundry room as I passed.
Today I was going for a run.
Maybe I’d take Neo with me.
He hated the leash, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t run beside me. Or near me.
And seeing as I was now forced to do a trail run on my own damn property instead of going down the road like I’d originally been intending…
I walked out the back door and Neo came to his feet.
I walked past him, giving him a wide berth, and called, “You can come with me. Or you can stay and deal with the psychopath that never takes no for an answer.”
Neo watched me leave.
He leveled the open gate with an intense look, and I wondered if he’d follow me or stay.
I started out at a jog, careful to let my muscles get warm before I pushed it to anything more intense.
I heard a rock behind me click, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Neo there, but far enough away that there would be no chance of us accidentally touching.
I turned back around and kept my eyes down, making sure that I didn’t die on a loose rock.
It was cold out today.
Colder than the locals said it was supposed to be.
I doubted that we’d make it much longer before there was actual snow.
Being from the South, I’d never gotten the chance to experience a true ‘winter’ until I’d moved here last year.
I’d been thrust directly into snowmageddon, and forced to learn really fast how to survive a Montana winter.
I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would.
I didn’t exactly love it, either.
What I for sure loved were the mild summers.
It got hot here, sure.
But it didn’t get overwhelmingly hot.
Plus, it always managed to drop low at night, so even if it was hot during the day, it wasn’t at night.
By the time I’d run three of the six miles that I’d intended for that day, I started to get thirsty.
I could hear Neo’s panting behind me and knew he had to be dying, too.
I made a detour down to the brook that bisected my three hundred acres and stopped next to the bubbling stream in hopes that Neo would go for a drink.
He didn’t disappoint, walking directly into the water and lying down like this was the perfect spot for him.
I took a seat on a boulder and stared up at the sky.
Where my property was located, it wasn’t directly next to the mountain. But it was close enough that I had a pretty damn good view of it.
As Neo panted lazily next to me, I wondered what Sage thought of this place.
I also wondered if she’d gotten rid of the psychopath.
Then a smile lit my face because there was no doubt in my mind that Sage hadn’t gotten rid of her.
Sage was a force of nature.
She was quiet and unassuming…until she wasn’t.
I’d witnessed that in the courtroom once when she’d had to get on the stand to testify.
“We call Sage Rice to the stand.”
“Sage Kelly,” Sage corrected the man when she took her seat.
“Sage Kelly,” the prosecutor said. “I’m sorry.”
His smile was smarmy, and I wanted to punch it right off his face.
“Ms. Kelly, can you state your name?”
“My name is Mrs. Sage Kelly.” She emphasized the Mrs. and the “Kelly.”
The prosecutor looked taken aback by the vehemence in her voice.
That was the thing about her.
She looked all unassuming until you pissed her off.
I’d done that by telling her she didn’t need to come to the trial.
It’s not like she really needed to be there to see me go to jail for defending her.
But she felt a sense of necessity and obligation, so I hadn’t thrown too big of a fit.
It wasn’t like I could control her.
She may be my wife, but it was in name only.
Plus, we barely knew each other.
It wasn’t like there would be any consequences for her if I’d protested and she showed up anyway.
I was literally in jail.
I couldn’t control anything she did.
“Can you tell us about that day?” the slimeball asked.
I’d dubbed him “slimeball” because he’d made light of what had happened to Sage.
He hadn’t thought it to be a big deal at all.
A “simple misunderstanding” in his book.
I called it straight-up rape, but it wasn’t like I could make him comprehend that.
If my hands were free, I might could beat some sense into him.
But other than that…
“Where do you want me to start?” Sage asked sweetly.
“How about when you saw Mr. Kelly in the coffee shop.”