Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“Awesome.”
“And if you want, I can put some brochures out for you,” I offered.
Her eyes lit. “Really?”
“Of course. We entrepreneurs need to stick together.”
“I’ll drop some by.”
“Great.”
“Now I’m gonna check out your shop.”
Please fall in love with that leather chair. Please, I mentally begged.
“Have at it,” I invited.
Although she did linger at the chair, and check out its price tag, she left with a candle, some earrings, a necklace and a morose woo-woo from Tonks, who also preferred the shop to be busy.
But no leather chair.
Even if she left them for me, I took some snaps of the pictures anyway and sent them to Hutch.
It took a while before he responded with, Cool, baby.
And when I got that response, I took a while staring at it.
Cool, baby.
Baby.
For the five thousandth time since it happened, I remembered the look on his face when he was sitting across from me in the booth at the Double D.
It was like I had a fan blowing on me, the filter to end all filters, and the perfect lighting illuminating me.
It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen me before.
No.
It was like he was finally seeing me.
I didn’t want Abigail to have the flu because I didn’t want anyone to have the flu. Flus sucked.
But selfishly, I’d wanted her to be there that day so I could tell her about Hutch’s look.
She was right.
I was almost certain of it.
He was falling in love with me.
He didn’t hide it.
It was right there across the booth from me.
Okay, sure, I was still worried that I had it wrong.
But I was a lot less worried after that look.
And yes, absolutely, we needed to talk it out and be on the same page.
But I was less anxious about that talk after seeing his look.
Breaking our stellar record, we had not had sex for a couple of days after the whole situation happened with my neighbors. We’d gratefully returned to those activities Monday night after Mrs. Matthews and Mark left.
Last night was no different.
But even after aiming that look at me, Hutch didn’t linger more than he normally lingered. There were no statements made.
Except for the fact his hunger for me, and mine for him, seemed like it would go perpetually unsated.
Thus, the statement had been being made since the beginning.
Now, I wasn’t fretting about the talk.
Now, I was frustrated it hadn’t happened yet.
And I found that frustration would continue when, early in the evening, Hutch texted, Reported eagle downed with broken wing. Gotta take Doc Simmons out there and help her capture him and get him to the clinic. Eat without me. May be late. Can you take care of the pups?
I assured him I could.
When the time came, I closed down the store, loaded up my pets, headed up the mountain, and not only let Hannibal out, but also did the whole back and forth to the dog run behind Hutch’s truck port at the back of the house with each of the puppies.
Hutch was in the midst of potty training.
Unfortunately, I found there’d been some accidents.
Fortunately, there weren’t many, though what there was, I cleaned up.
The sun went down early in Washington, but even so, Tonks and I took on the cold and dark to play fifteen minutes of fetch because she’d been cooped up all day with me at the shop, and I hadn’t been able to get away, even for a walk around the block.
I ate.
Hannibal and Tonks ate.
I sat in Hutch’s chair with Moxie in my lap and read about the history of Misted Pines, startled to see right away how far back Hutch’s friends Cade Bohannan and Lucinda Bonner had roots in that town.
And giggling at the story of Cornelius Ruck.
Hutch was so late, I went to bed without him.
He woke me by fitting his body into the back of mine and running an arm around my belly to pull me closer.
“Go back to sleep,” he murmured into the back of my hair.
“Eagle okay?” I asked.
“He might not fly again, but he’ll live.”
“Yuck,” I mumbled.
“All hope isn’t lost. It’ll take time. We’ll see.”
All hope wasn’t lost.
There he was, spooning me.
There I was, in the bed where he put me so he could protect me.
We’d never been friends with benefits, not from the beginning.
And we both knew it.
That was more than fine by me.
On that thought, I snuggled into my guy.
And fell asleep.
THIRTY-FOUR
Bedtime Stories
Mabel
Thursday had been dead.
Friday was a madhouse.
This wasn’t unusual. I’d already learned that things picked up on Friday due to long-weekenders hitting the area. I’d often had to come in because Abigail called me, seeing as she needed help.
But Abigail was still out with the flu.
And Hutch was still helping at Stony Bluff, driving back and forth to his place to keep an eye on the pups, as well as Tonks, since he was coming into town that night so we could have dinner at Luigi’s then go to the town council meeting.