Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
I couldn’t help the shake of my head as I watched her drive away.
Heading to my brand-new vehicle that I’d bought literally yesterday, I got in and started the SUV up.
The dings instantly grated on my nerves, and I quickly hit the auto-stop button to off so the damn thing wouldn’t shut off.
That would be my first order of business once I got to Dallas—finding someone who could jailbreak my car so that it wouldn’t ding at me when I had my seat belt off, and it wouldn’t turn off at stop lights.
I was all for saving the environment, but the auto-stop thing was absolutely ridiculous.
After I was situated in my seat with my eighteen points of contact with the seat so that it wouldn’t tell me that I was not strapped in right—or whatever the hell it was dinging at me for—I started off.
I sent a text to Gunner with about an hour left of my drive using my voice-to-text feature, which I had to admit was nice.
“Hey, I’m on my way.”
He replied almost instantly, and my robotic car read it back to me, then so helpfully asked if I wanted to navigate to that address.
Gunner:
At this address. Feel free to come by and we can go grab some lunch.
I chose to let it guide me there, my nerves picking up speed the closer we got.
“Whoa,” I said as I took in the school. “This is something else.”
Schools in Dallas weren’t quite like the schools back home.
This place was the size of a small city.
And it was only an elementary school?
Wow.
Just wow.
I took in the huge three-story building with two massive one-hundred-foot flagpoles proudly waving both the Texas flag and the American flag.
I took in the perfectly manicured landscaping with the hundreds of rose bushes and colorful flowers.
But my gaze came to a stop on the sexy man who had his arms over his chest as a woman much smaller than him all but pointed in his face.
I pulled to a stop in the visitor parking spaces and got out, heading directly to the man who was holding on to his patience like a damn saint.
“I don’t think that we need you here.” The woman pointing her finger tapped Gunner on the chest. “I’m also not sure that you’re the man for the job. You’re a celebrity, not a security consultant.”
Oh, boy.
Ten
Maybe the grass is greener over there because you’re not over there fucking it up.
—Gunner’s secret thoughts
GUNNER
“And why do you think I need this?”
I hated this part of the job.
The superintendent of Gale Roberts Independent School District looked at me like I was a nut job.
Maybe if she buried her face in the sand, nothing bad would happen.
“You do know why I’m here, right?” I asked. “The district voted for me to make this place safer for their children.”
She scoffed. “These are elementary-age kids. Nothing like that will ever happen here.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right?”
“About what?”
“You think that the bad things only happen at high schools?” I asked. “Think again.”
“A five-year-old isn’t going to come to school with a gun.”
“Actually,”—a familiar voice sounded from behind me—“there was a teacher who’s literally fighting her way through court right now that was shot in the face by her elementary-age student. She even told the school officials that she thought her student had a gun, and they did nothing.” She narrowed her eyes at the superintendent. “Kind of like you’re doing right now. Burying your head in the sand won’t make the threat go away.”
“And who are you?” the superintendent sneered.
“I work with him,” Sutton lied. “I’m his social media person. Smile.”
The superintendent, Mrs. Waters she’d ordered me to call her, smiled as if she hadn’t just been fighting me on every little thing. “Oh, I didn’t know this would be a photo op.”
This bitch…
“If you’re okay now, I’ll just let my crew get back to work,” I grumbled.
“Oh, I guess that’s fine.” Mrs. Waters now played the part perfectly.
Maybe I should’ve threatened to record the event an hour ago when she started bitching about why we were here.
The crew that was working on the GR ISD with me today looked relieved to be able to get to work.
They were paid by the job, not by the hours that they worked, so their entire goal was to get this done and move on to the next job.
They performed their jobs well, but sometimes their tempers left a lot to be desired.
I guess that was what happened when you hired all former military and former cops onto your crews.
“Ramsey,” I said as we made eye contact. “Take lunch when it gets here. The district is supposed to provide it for us. Call me if you have any issues. I’m making a stop at a few other job sites today, so I might not be back.”