Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
I touched the ends of my hair. “Thank you.” I’d known he was vain about his appearance. “I stopped using shampoo two years ago, and it made a world of difference for me.”
I was surprised when Henri murmured, “But it smells good.”
A compliment. I dropped my hand. “I still wash it with castile soap, just not shampoo. And I use a vinegar rinse and a good conditioner. It’s a whole method.” And actually this was a good segue into why I was here. I took the little box out of my fanny pack—realizing then I should have gotten him multiple ones since he had so much hair—and I tossed it.
The sasquatch caught it and read the box, which was something I was going to have to tell Sienna about. Or ask Henri over. How did he know how to read? Did he walk around in human form sometimes? “Conditioner?”
“Your hair is fine despite what I said, but that’s a good conditioner. I can help you order more if you want.” Did he have money?
How I could tell a being covered from head to toe in hair was surprised was something I didn’t totally understand, but I did.
“If you want,” I offered, so he wouldn’t feel any pressure. Maybe he’d hate it, but I’d tried.
Spencer’s voice was loud. “Okay.” Not thank you, nothing else. Just okay. At least he hadn’t called me a demon again. I needed to quit while I was ahead.
“I’m sorry again for what I said in anger. Hope you like the conditioner.” I turned to Henri and raised my eyebrows, telling him I was ready to go if he was.
He nodded. We started hiking back in the direction we’d come. We hadn’t gotten very far when Spencer called out in his big voice, “Henri?”
“What?” the man beside me hollered, not slowing down.
“Tell Maggie I called her a traitor!”
“No!” Henri yelled back, shaking his head.
Maggie? Nursery Maggie? What in the…?
Going down the hill wasn’t any easier than going up it. My knees cracked and started hurting, and I slipped more than once again on damp leaves but managed to stay on my feet. But it was faster than going up had been.
We had just gotten to where the land levelled off when the rich voice that was becoming more and more familiar by the sentence spoke again. “You didn’t need to do that, you know.”
“What? Say I was sorry?”
“Yeah.”
He was a little further ahead of me, so I couldn’t see his face, but he couldn’t see mine either. “Maybe not, but I don’t know what his life has been like, who has hurt him. I don’t need to be one more person in a line of shitty people.”
That got him to stop between two aspens. He lifted his head but didn’t do anything else.
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? I just don’t think you get that distrustful or rude because it’s fun, unless you’re a psychopath.” I kept walking, catching his eyes when I got to his side. I shrugged up at him and that thoughtful, handsome face. “The people who are the hardest to love are usually the ones who need it the most. Funny how that works, huh?”
Chapter
Thirteen
Sienna: How’s my baby doing?
Lying across the bed after dinner, I eyed Duncan who was busy gnawing away on a bone while hooked on an action movie with immortal soldiers who were being hunted down.
He was too much.
The fact he loved television, and especially action movies, never failed to tickle the crap out of me. But just about everything he did had that ability. He could sit there snoring like an exhausted dad after a theme park visit, and I thought it was precious. His farts, ignoring the smell, were adorable. At least half the photos on my phone were of him in various stages of sleep. With his paws in the air, on his side, with one lone paw extended, with his butt on me and the rest of him on another surface.
It was crazy what love could do to a person. They could pick up and change their entire lives for it. And even if things weren’t absolutely perfect, and maybe they’d been better—or at least more familiar before—sacrifices for love had never been less painful.
Maybe they couldn’t even be counted as sacrifices. I had that in mind as I texted Si back.
Me: The baby is doing great. He has more friends than I’ve had my entire life, and he’s going on his first run tonight with the pack finally
Henri had given me the news that morning over breakfast, and maybe Duncan didn’t really seem to care—because he had no idea what he’d been missing out on—but that was all right. I was excited enough for him. I’d talked to Matti during his lunch break, and he’d mentioned how much fun they were and how good they would be for the donut. Running around playing tag and ball was fine and all, but a pack run was different.