Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“Get in here already, it’s cold,” Boone grumbled as he stood at the ranch house’s door.
I walked inside and shut it, sighing when the warmth hit me.
I hadn’t realized how damn cold I was.
I moved to the fire almost on autopilot.
“Well if it isn’t Mr. Missing In Action.”
I looked from the fire to find Major and Denver on the couch that I’d just walked past.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I have a boss on my ass.”
Major chuckled. “Find anything new?”
“Nothing.” I gritted my teeth. “I did get a hit on the fletching, though. Apparently, they’re custom-made by a guy in Montana. Expensive because they’re a new design. The design was recently patented, and I was able to look up the patent information. Dude that registered the patent—I called him and left a voicemail.”
“Good.” Major looked toward Denver. “He’s here now.”
“He sure is,” Denver agreed as he stood, downing his beer as he moved.
I followed him with my eyes and felt my lips kick up at the corner when I saw the leather cut he picked up off the side table in the kitchen.
“Since you were so busy…” he tossed me the jacket. “The rest of the guys got a party. You get a congrats and a beer before you go.”
“Thanks,” I said as I touched the leather. It felt good to be a part of something. A family. “I thought we had more time?”
“Time is irrelevant,” Denver said. “Each of you has proved yourself over the last couple of months in your own way. Though none of y’all were able to get Romeo to join. That was a downvote on Grady’s end.”
I chuckled.
Grady worked with Romeo at a logging company—Paul Bunyon’s.
He’d been half in love with Romeo ever since he met him.
I slipped on the cut over my jacket and laughed. “How do y’all do this again?”
“We put it on underneath our jackets, dumbass. It’s too cold to do anything different up here,” Boone said as he came into the room with two beers and handed me one. “Where’s Claudine at today?”
Claudine was the resident cook for the ranch that Denver ran. She cooked for all of the club members, plus the ranch hands. She was fuckin’ phenomenal, and it would leave Denver in the lurch if she was gone for very long.
“Claudine is visiting her family in Kentucky,” he said. “Though, she said that she had her best friend’s daughter heading our way. She’s a world-renowned chef and said she’d cook tomorrow until Claudine got back next weekend.”
“You can go to Hopps with us for dinner then,” Boone suggested.
“I can’t.” Major stood up from the couch and stretched his arms up high over his head. “Gotta get home to my girl.”
I grinned. “Ask her to make me some more cookies, please.”
Major rolled his eyes. “You have to stop asking that. You know she’ll keep makin’ ’em. And I have health issues.”
“You do not.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re one of the healthiest men I know.”
And he was, too. He was the most in shape fifty-year-old man I’d met in my life. And that was saying something since I was in prison with a lot of in-shape fifty-year-old men.
“Gotta keep myself in good shape because my woman has needs,” he joked.
Denver gagged.
“Fuck off.”
Sorcha was also Denver’s sister, though they weren’t close in age. Sorcha was ten years older than Denver, even though she didn’t look it.
“Have a nice night, gentlemen,” Boone called. “I’m going to eat.”
Denver and I followed him out the door while Major stayed back and called his wife to let her know he was on the way home.
We arrived at Hopps just behind a group that I knew well.
I walked up to Vito once we got inside and slapped him on the back. “Hey, man.”
Vito grinned. “Hey. I see you got the cut finally.”
“I did.” I studied his family. “Where did Birdee end up going?”
Because I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Which was fucking insane, seeing as I was the worst possible person she could let into her life.
Well, maybe one of the seven worst she could let into her life. Escaped convicts weren’t something you played around with—even if she didn’t know I was an escaped convict.
Mable frowned. “Birdee’s gone?”
I don’t know why that particular question coming from her “sister’s” mouth pissed me off so badly, but it did.
My brows rose. “You didn’t know?”
“Why would we?” Cody asked. “She doesn’t tell us anything about her life.”
Because you don’t fucking ask.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged as I looked over at Vito and Grace. “I guess I just assumed that since you were her sister, Mable, and you were her father, Vito, that you would know what happened in your sister’s and daughter’s life. Guess I was wrong.”
I left them standing there after that, fuming.
I hated how they didn’t care about her.