Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 63862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
“Thanks,” I said to the driver as I slid out of the car and made my way into the hotel.
In the elevator, my hand slid into the front pocket of my purse, looking for my keycard.
That’s when I found it.
The diamond ring.
A pained whimper escaped me as I slid it back on my finger.
For, you know, safekeeping.
Until I could give it back to Harrison in court.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
If some part of me had been expecting (maybe hoping?) to see Harrison on the flight back to the East Coast, I was sorely mistaken.
Maybe sneaking out on him in the middle of the night after he’d rescued me, tended to me, and then been intimate with me had been the final straw for him.
Maybe he was done with me.
Seeing as that was what I wanted all along, there was no reason for that empty feeling in my chest as I went back to my hometown and faced the questions (and in the case of my male cousins—ridicule) of my family.
“Alright,” Kit, another of my cousins, said, dropping a cup of coffee down on the table in front of me. “Spill.”
“Spill what?” I asked, looking up at Kit in all her lavender-haired, goth-clothed glory.
“You’ve been crashing on my couch for a week.”
“So?”
“So, you could be staying at Willa’s little mansion. Or in your old childhood bedroom. Or, I don’t know, at the biker clubhouse. But you’re here. On my couch.”
“What’s the big deal?”
“You hate it here.”
“I don’t!”
To that, Kit rolled her eyes. “You do not have a country-living bone in your whole body.”
“That’s not fair. I like all the animals here.”
I did.
Kit and my other cousin Ariah had once been really successful van-life influencers. But when they got sick of the road, they decided to settle down into another niche. They bought a rare chunk of farmland on the outskirts of our hometown. Then they worked diligently to carve out their new path in life as homesteaders.
I loved watching their videos, seeing the progress of this place. From a raw chunk of land to two separate off-grid tiny homes, sprawling gardens, orchards, and numerous animal pens.
She wasn’t wrong, though.
I was a city type of girl.
I liked the chaos, the adventures, the inability to predict what the next day might be like.
The routines of farm life didn’t exactly appeal to me, no matter how much I loved that Kit and Ariah got to live their dream.
“You squealed at one of the pigs yesterday.”
“He was trying to eat my pants.”
“You’d wiped your hands on them after feeding the chickens grapes.”
“I didn’t realize he had a nose like one of these,” I said, patting the head of the massive Great Pyrenees who was half sprawled over me. His white fur was, no doubt, all over me. But he was good company.
“Come on, Layna. What’s going on with you?”
“I needed to unplug,” I admitted. Kind of literally. They had awful reception on the homestead. “This feels like a reset.”
“After the whole accidental marriage thing…”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Yeah, that.”
“Relax. I’m not going to tease you about it. But if you want to talk…”
“Not really. Gracie and I have gone on and on about it. Which only felt like it was making it worse.”
“Okay. Well, I can also not talk about it. Are you going to the get-together tonight?”
I hadn’t been planning on it. Again, my uncles and male cousins were going to have a lot to say about my situation. But sitting around in silence at the homestead was only letting my mind wander.
And it always found its way back to, well, him.
Maybe talking to everyone else about what was going on with them would help.
Besides, I couldn’t avoid my family for the next few weeks, months, year, however long this was going on.
Last I heard from my lawyer, Harrison’s attorneys had been giving him the runaround, talking about meetings and trips and all kinds of scheduling conflicts. It sounded like it was going to be a while before this went to court.
So I was just going to have to move on while waiting for that day.
“I guess,” I agreed.
“You don’t have to act like it’s going to be torture. We always have a good time. And then we can come back here, and you can sleep on my uncomfortable couch and grumble at the roosters every morning.”
“Hey, it is not my fault they wake up at four-forty-five every morning.”
“It’s not their fault you don’t go to bed until two a.m.”
“True.”
“Is it just the jet-setting lifestyle, or are you having trouble sleeping?”
“Both, I guess.”
“I can brew you up some chamomile—don’t make that face!”
Yeah, I was totally making a face.
“You know how I feel about black tea. Can you imagine my feelings on herbal?”
“It’s good with a little honey.”
“I’ll bet it tastes like boiled grass.”
“You’re impossible. Well, the tea is in the cabinet over the kettle if you want to try it. I have to go get all the animals away before I shower and get ready for tonight. Feel free to clean up first,” she said with a pointed look at my hair that probably was looking flat and greasy.