Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
A throat cleared and I looked behind me to see Gentry and Black along with the bus driver.
My eyes filled with tears.
She walked toward me and hugged me. “She’s okay?”
“She’s okay.” I sniffled and hugged her back. “She doesn’t even have a concussion. They sewed her head wound up and said she’d probably be stiff and sore for the next few days.”
“Good.” The bus driver, an older woman in her late fifties, pulled away with her eyes dripping with tears.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “It was that black car’s fault.” I looked to the two officers. “Did you find anything?”
I felt heat at my back and knew Beau was there.
“We didn’t find anything, no,” Black admitted. “All the houses on that street have no cameras. Yours didn’t pick anything up. They didn’t have a front license plate, either, so the dash cam on the bus didn’t pick anything up. There are only the witnesses to the event. We have the car’s description and know that a woman was driving. We’re canvassing the neighborhood for that vehicle, but since the road you live on is a cut-through street from highway to highway…”
“You’re not holding out much hope of finding it,” Beau guessed.
“No,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, darlin’.”
“It’s okay.” I scrubbed at my face.
“Do y’all mind if I go say hi?” the bus driver asked. “I brought her a little muffin.”
My heart melted. “She’d love to see you.”
The moment she left, Beau changed. “Now that you talked about the legal side of what you can do, let’s talk about the not-so-legal. There’s no fucking way that those houses don’t have cameras.”
“Apollo’s on it,” Gentry murmured.
“Good,” Beau said fiercely. “Because there’s no way in hell I’m letting this go.”
“We have a BOLO—be on the lookout—on the car,” he explained. “There was a single person on the road that heard the commotion. I think Magnolia was screaming and turned to look. She was old as fuck, though, and she can’t remember if she saw an S or an 8 or an I or an L. So we have a number of combinations it could be. But the other officers in my department and three other departments within a fifty-mile radius are also looking.”
I tilted my head left and right, feeling it crack and pop as I did.
The men continued to speak in low tones, but I was just…done.
I had no more energy left.
I had no more desire to do much more of anything but curl up in a bed beside Iris and just…sleep.
I’m sorry, Rose.
My nose started to sting as I once again felt tears fill my eyes.
There I was, almost letting the child she entrusted me with die.
Die right in front of my eyes.
I was failing Rose.
I was…
Beau wrapped me up in his arms again, then said something over my head that I couldn’t understand because I’d once again burst into uncontrolled sobs.
I had no idea how much I’d needed him.
Not until he was there.
NINE
I’ll make it weird. I’ll make it weird as fuck.
—Magnolia to Beau
BEAU
The ride home from the hospital was quiet.
I’d left during her discharge to go grab the booster seat from Constance and Odin and had been back just in time to see her being wheeled outside.
Constance had informed me that it was ‘mine to keep’ since I was ‘about to have her with me all the time.’
I hadn’t disagreed with my good friend’s new wife, because I agreed with her. I’d been denying what I wanted for eight months now.
I had a way out planned for my future, and there was no reason to wait any longer.
After today’s events, and almost losing Iris, I’d come to the conclusion on the way to the emergency room that I’d wasted enough of my life.
Now, both were quiet and fully asleep as I drove through the quiet streets of Sawtooth.
The snow always made everything seem so much quieter.
I craved this kind of peace when I was away from it.
Yet another thing that my sister had taken away.
I always traveled with the team. We went to every major city all over the country, and I had quickly come to realize that I liked none of them. They were all too loud. Too crowded. Too peopley.
But my hometown, and the surrounding two towns—Jawbone and Bear Pass—was my happy place.
I never wanted to leave it again.
I’d done the whole traveling thing.
I hadn’t realized until I’d had to start traveling again how bone-tiring it was.
Plus, let’s just be honest, people in big cities were different.
There wasn’t that ‘love thy neighbor’ feel at any of them.
There was hustle and bustle. Who could get ahead of who. Who knew who.
That wasn’t something that happened here.
I grew up a Vanderbilt. And honestly, my family’s wealth hadn’t been a bone of contention between anyone growing up.