Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Nope. No way. The man had been needling me from the moment he’d entered the house. He hated me as much as I hated him.
“Did you slip me something?” I asked.
“Slip you something?” Flynn responded, obviously confused.
“For the pain,” I explained. “’Cause I don’t understand what’s happening right now.”
“I’m sure they’ll give you something for the pain as soon as we get there, sweetheart.”
“I meant am I on them now because I feel weird. And where is there?”
I was pretty sure I knew the answer, but Flynn’s confirmation was strange. It wasn’t that he’d said the word; it was how he’d said it.
Chapter Seven
FLYNN
Hospital.
I wasn’t sure if I’d said the dreaded word out loud even once, but it kept running on a loop inside my brain.
“Flynn?”
The sound of my name seemed loud in the car, but I dismissed that as the fine craftsmanship of the European vehicle. Surely, Jules was speaking at his regular volume.
The reminder of why I was in the car in the first place drew me out of the mental fog I’d been in for God only knew how long.
We were sitting in the Range Rover just beneath the iron arch bearing the name of the ranch. My only choice was to go right because there was only one road that led down the mountain. So at some point, I’d managed to get the car going, turned it in the right direction and driven straight a few dozen feet, but that was it. How long had we been sitting there?
Warmth sparked to life at the base of my thumb. What a strange place to feel warmth while the rest of my body was numb. I looked down at my hand to determine the source and was surprised to see another thumb. The smaller, slimmer digit was rubbing gentle circles into my skin. As the finger moved to my wrist, warmth followed. I drank it in like the purest of sunlight. My eyes stayed on those fingers for a long time as they worked their magic. It was only when they reached my fingers that I realized I had my hand wrapped around the gearshift of the car. My knuckles were bloodless as I gripped the object like it was the only thing tethering me to Earth.
It wasn’t until Jules’s fingers rubbed over mine that they gave up the battle and released the gearshift. Instead, they wrapped themselves around Jules’s hand.
“Jules?” I murmured absently as I eased my foot off the brake pedal. I didn’t say anything else because I didn’t have any questions for him. I just liked saying his name and knowing he was really there.
“Yeah?” Jules responded. He was waiting for the question I didn’t have. I couldn’t help but glance at him. There was a softness in his eyes that was unreachable… untouchable. I forced myself to look back at the road since driving down a mountain road wasn’t really the time to get lost in looking at anything, let alone anyone.
I didn’t respond except to get the car moving. The silence was unbearable. Jules was no longer touching me, but I could feel his eyes on me.
“What?” I asked as I shot him a quick glance. His expression was soft. Welcoming. But all that went away with the harshness of my question.
“Nothing, it’s just… stupid stuff,” Jules murmured before looking out the window.
“I happen to be a connoisseur of stupid stuff,” I nudged.
Jules went quiet for several beats before he shifted his body in the seat so he’d basically be able to watch me as I drove. “You first,” he murmured.
“What?”
“You tell me something stupid and then I’ll tell you my stupid thing.”
“We were talking about you—” I began.
“Forget it,” Jules said with a huff. If I hadn’t heard the disappointment in his voice, I would have laughed at the sight of him pouting.
The prospect of losing the tenuous connection I’d forged with Jules bothered me more than I wanted to admit, so I considered what he’d been talking about. Whatever it was, it was obviously important to him because he wanted the same from me.
Something personal. Something that carried enough weight that Jules wouldn’t feel like the only one making himself vulnerable.
I didn’t do vulnerable. I might be good at empathizing with someone else’s troubles, but I didn’t share my own… at least, not with anyone on two legs. My horse always got a good laugh out of all the stupid shit I talked about when whatever canopy of stars I was sleeping under weren’t quite bright enough to hold my attention.
Then I noticed that with the way he’d turned toward me, he’d had to cross his good arm beneath his bad one to keep his fingers near mine.
He’d comforted me. Jules had picked up on the change in my voice when I’d told him where we were going, and even though my jackass behavior had caused him to release my hand, he was keeping his fingers close in case I needed him again. The reminder of why we were even in the car had me focusing on speeding up enough that we’d get down the mountain faster, but I wouldn’t be risking our lives in the process. I removed my hand from the gearshift and placed it on the steering wheel so that Jules wouldn’t be able to touch me again.