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)
As I took a healthy sip of my drink, I let my eyes wander, looking for one man in particular.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Gentry.
That kiss had been…
I glanced up to look around for him, my gaze going for several seconds before I spotted him talking to a couple of women near the back patio area next to the grill.
The women were quite scantily clad.
As in, wearing a mini skirt and a tank top despite it being sweatshirt weather.
One was leaning closer to Gentry, her hand not quite touching him but close.
He had on a pair of jeans, work boots, a black long-sleeved t-shirt and a baseball cap pulled down low over his eyes.
Whatever the woman who’d almost done the touching said made him laugh.
I frowned hard, not liking the instant anger and despair that rocketed through me upon seeing him talking to someone else. Let alone doing other things.
Other things that he really had every right to do, seeing as I wasn’t really his wife…
He brought his beer up to his lips and that’s when I saw my clothes hanging from one arm.
Leggings and a t-shirt.
I was going to freeze.
“Hello.”
Startled, I whipped my head away from Gentry and found myself staring at one of my favorite people.
I smiled at Mable. “Oh, hey.”
She patted my hand and said, “How’s Neo?”
I gave her the rundown.
“That’s good,” she said. “I’m glad that he’s making progress. How’s search and rescue going?”
I thought about my answer for a long moment as I continued to scan the crowd.
“I’ve only been to three meetings,” I said. “And I like it. It’s fun to meet new people. Though a lot of them seem to be bikers that I see here. So maybe it’s not new, exactly. It’s also nice to be able to go onto the trails not alone. I like hiking, I think. But it’s still pretty new to me and I’m not exactly comfortable doing it alone.”
“I know what you mean,” she said. “After the bear attack on one of my friends, I’m nervous to go out by myself, and I’ve been doing it for my entire life.”
I winced.
The bear attack had been bad.
I’d been in the ER that day and it was terrifying.
I’d also helped with the patient after the attack. She’d almost died.
That’d been part of my reason for not wanting to go on my own.
I knew nothing about Montana wildlife.
I knew they had a lot of it, too. Bears. Moose. Elk. Mountain lions.
I grew up in the city. The most interaction I had with wildlife was an occasional squirrel and a raccoon that got stuck in a garbage can.
They were about as far from “scary” as you could get.
“Gentry can’t take his eyes off you.”
I followed Mable’s gaze to where she was staring across the wide-open space and found my heart speeding up when I found him.
He was surrounded by a bunch of kids, laughing.
He was holding up a piñata and several of the kids were trying to beat it with their hands.
My heart ached at the picture he made.
His son would’ve been seven this year.
He’d have been right up in the middle of all of those kids, loving and living every second of it.
My mood instantly deteriorated.
That was my fault.
I’d been the reason that Gentry had lost his child.
If he hadn’t saved me…
“Hey!”
I blinked and turned slightly to find someone sitting directly behind me.
“You’re a nurse, right?”
I looked over at the man who was holding a beer to his lips and staring at me with unwavering attention. “I am.”
Odin was a large man. He was very intimidating, and sometimes when he spoke it startled me because he did it so infrequently.
He was the town’s medical examiner, and I didn’t have very many opportunities to run into him.
His girlfriend was the sweetest thing in the world, though.
Constance was a photographer and worked at the wildlife rehab facility just outside of Bear Pass.
She was sunshine to Odin’s cloudy day.
“You want a job?”
I blinked. “Um, what?”
“Odin’s taking over Dr. Pendelton’s practice,” Constance explained. “He doesn’t like working with incompetent people, and that’s how he feels about Dr. Pendelton’s entire staff. He’s trying to find people that won’t bother the shit out of him.”
My lips twitched. “I can’t promise that I won’t bother the shit out of you.”
“At least you’d be aware that you could bother the shit out of me,” he grumbled. “I also asked Creed’s sister, Bernice, to come in. I’m still keeping my job with the medical examiner’s office. Bernice is a nurse practitioner. Between the three of us, I think we could putz around until we have it all figured out. Hire more staff as needed.”
I thought about the farmer who wouldn’t have a doctor if it weren’t for him. Then I thought about how much I hated the ER.
“What’s the pay?” I found myself asking. “And the hours?”