Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
He found the ladder and set it up, but then he realized he had another problem. He didn’t want her climbing down on her own, so he started to climb up.
“What are you doing?” she called out as she peered down over the roof at him.
“Don’t you move,” he snapped. “I don’t want you moving one inch. You might fall off.”
“I’ve been up here before, and I didn’t fall,” she told him.
“Why the hell did you come up here before?” he snarled.
“To get away from Chuck Roast when he was trying to stampede me. Only that time, the ladder fell over and disappeared.”
“It disappeared,” he asked. “How did it disappear?”
“The llamas love the ladder. I don’t know why, but they like to cart it off. Don’t worry, they’re stuck in the back paddock. Jaret didn’t want them anywhere close while he was patching the roof yesterday.”
“I do not like that you had to climb up onto a barn roof to get away from a steer.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t like it either,” she said. “I got stuck up here when the llamas took the ladder. So I had to wait until someone came home.”
Yeah, he really, really didn’t like that.
He couldn’t believe she’d been here five nights and Clem hadn’t called him until last night. Why hadn’t she contacted him earlier?
Maybe because Lily needed some time here with her sister.
Perhaps. But she could have given him a bit of a heads up.
“Right, I’m coming up to get you. Stay there,” he ordered.
“I can come down on my own,” she told him. “I’ve done it before.”
“Stay there. Hear me?” he said sternly.
“Oh, all right,” she said.
“Good girl,” he told her.
She peered at him over the edge of the roof with wide eyes.
“And stay back from the edge,” he added, feeling alarmed. She could easily slip, fall, and break her neck.
God, he had to get her away from this place. There were too many hazards.
“It’s really all right,” she said. “I’m far more competent on the roof now than I was last time. I nearly slipped off last time. Of course, when I flew up here with that asshole chasing me, I had the gun in my hand, so I was a bit unsteady and slower than I should have been. And Chuck Roast knocked the ladder away right as I had reached the roof. So I was kind of dangling there for a moment. Good news is that I have way more upper body strength than I thought.”
“You’re giving me an ulcer,” he told her. He could easily picture that in his mind, and he had to pause for a second on the ladder to wipe his brain clear.
She’s safe. She’s safe. Nothing will happen to her again.
Only there was a man with a gun who had threatened her, then chased her as she climbed a ladder with a loaded gun that could have gone off at any moment.
Not to mention clinging to the roof of a barn with said loaded gun. Oh, fuck. Yeah, he was going to vomit.
“Are you sure it’s an ulcer and not indigestion?” she asked, “Jaret apparently gets a lot of indigestion.”
“If Clem is anything like you, then I understand.”
“Oh, you think me and Clem are alike? Thank you. I’d love to be like Clem. She’s so brave, courageous, and funny. Hey, maybe you and Jaret can form a support group. Husbands of St. Clary women.”
He’d reached the top by then and watched as her face grew pale.
“Husband, huh? I like the sound of that.”
“You do?” she whispered.
“Of course I do. I’m going to get a ring on that finger as soon as I can, and then you won’t be able to leave me again. Or tell me to go away. Because once you marry me, it’s forever, Lily St. Clary. And there is no getting away from me once you’re my wife.”
“I don’t want to,” she told him. “I didn’t want to push you away. I was just doing what I thought was best.”
“Yeah, what you thought was best,” he said as he climbed up onto the roof and took the gun.
Thank fuck the safety was on. He could breathe a bit easier now.
He set the gun to one side and drew her close to his side. “But it wasn’t for the best, was it?”
“He would have shot you,” she exclaimed. “I had to send you away. How come you came back anyway?”
“I came back because I realized you wouldn’t have just changed your mind like that. And I’d let my hurt feelings and temper rule rather than my brain. Oh, and I would rather he was threatening me than you,” he told her. “Thinking about you running away from him, climbing onto a roof with a loaded gun, and then clinging to the roof of the barn . . . yeah, I really don’t want to think about that at all, and I would much rather you hadn’t lived it. So if there is ever a threat to you again, you will let me handle it.”