Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Casten was a little bit pissy.
I was invading his territory, and he didn’t want me to.
In fact, he wanted me there almost as much as I wanted to be there…and he’d told me so. Repeatedly.
And I think on a vindictive whim, I’d chosen Casten’s place just because he was being such a douche bag.
“Fine,” I growled at him.
But he was no longer there.
He was inside, and I was left on the sidewalk looking into his house through the open front door.
“Infuriating, no good, very bad, asshole man,” I snarled, stomping up the steps.
The movement pinched my healing incision on my lower belly, but I didn’t stop.
No pain, no gain, and all that shit.
I walked into the house and looked around at my surroundings.
Nothing much had changed from the time I was there a couple days ago.
It was now Monday afternoon, and the only thing I could tell that was different was the fact that there were no people here, except for the two women watching me from the couch.
“Hello,” I waved to them.
“Hello,” both of them echoed.
I pursed my lips, walking into the room with my arms across my belly, resting higher up than I normally would’ve liked, due to the incision from where my appendix had been brutally ripped from my body.
Well, not brutally.
I was sure it was taken quite nicely and all but that was neither here nor there.
“My name is CeeCee,” the older of the two women introduced herself, standing up.
She offered me her hand, and I shook it out of habit.
She looked vaguely familiar, but at this point in time I couldn’t quite place her. That might be due to the pain meds clouding my brain, however.
CeeCee had long brown hair the color of Casten’s, and she had his dimples.
But that was where the similarities ended.
She was small, much smaller than me.
In fact, if I had to guess, she was around five foot two or three inches compared to my own five foot nine inches.
She had her hair cut short around her shoulders, and she had the most beautiful green eyes I’d ever seen.
The other woman stood as well and offered me her hand, so I switched to her, studying her as inconspicuously as I could.
“My name’s Rhea, everyone calls me Rhea, and you’ll have to excuse Ten. He’s a grump when he misses lunch,” Rhea replied warmly.
I grinned at her.
“My little Storm Cloud never said he was hungry,” I teased.
Rhea’s smile widened.
“Storm Cloud. I like it,” she snickered.
CeeCee snorted.
“Your little Storm Cloud is on the back porch with Koda,” CeeCee pointed outside.
There I saw him throwing a ball for the dog, which I assumed had to be Koda.
“You know why I’m here?” I asked, turning my gaze back to them.
They both nodded.
I sighed and sat down on the couch. Gently.
“I wanted to go home,” I told the two of them.
CeeCee smiled.
“You’ve made the very short list of people Casten has to take care of,” CeeCee explained. “You’ll have to get used to it…and from what I understand, he has a reason to be nervous.”
Apparently, he did, but I didn’t really know for sure.
“Yeah, that’s what he said, anyway,” I told them.
CeeCee pulled out her phone.
“He sent me these pictures of your place,” she started, but I waved her off.
“I’ve already seen them,” I muttered.
I was going to be sick.
My place had been trashed.
The only thing left viable had been my bedroom and clothes, and even then they all needed a good wash and bleaching since the guy had decided to have his way all over my clothes.
I’d thought about throwing them away, but I didn’t have the money to replace them.
And not all of them were soiled, only some of them.
My sister, the nice woman that she was, had taken all of my clothes to a laundromat and would return them once they were cleaned of any nasty business from my intruder.
“Who do they think broke into your home?” Rhea questioned.
She looked so innocent, and I really didn’t want to talk about the man that had taken a fancy to me.
CeeCee, however, didn’t seem to notice my reaction to the question.
“Her place was broken into while she was in the hospital having her appendix removed,” CeeCee explained. “And Mig and Casten seem to think it’s related to that person who has been sending Tasha a lot of text messages.”
My stomach rolled.
Casten, however, saved the day by coming inside and walking past the three of us straight to the kitchen.
Koda, however, stopped directly in front of me, then dropped the most disgusting tennis ball covered in dog slime and dirt into my lap.
“Ewwww,” I frowned, rolling the ball off my legs with a single finger.
Koda picked it up and placed it right back into my lap.
“She thinks you’re playing with her,” Rhea giggled.
Well, I wasn’t.
I wasn’t a big dog fan, and I missed my ferret and cat.