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)
I rubbed at my face. “What a shitshow.”
Alarms started to go off in the emergency room, and a team of doctors and nurses all went toward Cody’s room at a full-out sprint, nearly taking Grace out in the process.
“That doesn’t look good,” Gentry, who’d been silent up until now, mused.
“No,” I agreed. “It does not.”
Twenty-Seven
I swing both ways. Violently. With a bat.
—Birdee to Creed
Birdee
“Why do you think there are three bikers sitting on Creed’s back porch?” I wondered. “And why do you think that Odin’s been looking at you like you were his last meal for the majority of that?”
Because seriously, the man was hot as hell, and I was in a very happy relationship with a man sexier than him, yet I couldn’t stop myself from feeling all hot and bothered by the looks he was shooting Bernice’s way.
“I’m trying not to think about it,” Bernice admitted.
Mable arrived with drinks and set them down beside us.
They were nothing grand. Just packet hot chocolate, but it was special to me. Because Mable was here, with me, instead of at the hospital with her longtime best friend.
I felt seen for the first time by her in my life.
“What do you think about my cup?” Mable asked, sitting down with her own mug of hot chocolate.
She took a sip out of the coffee cup, and my lips twitched.
My coffee cup was pretty tame. Just a bull riding a cowboy. Bernice’s was slightly worse, a snail leaving a trail of slime while wearing a thong.
But Mable’s was downright hilarious.
It was a doctored photo turned into cartoon of Edward Cullen dropping it low on a stripper pole wearing a thong with the words “This is the skin of a killer, Bella” written on it.
“That’s…fantastic.” I giggled.
“I thought so, too,” she said. “I didn’t even see it. At first, it was a black mug.”
“I bought that for him a couple of years ago,” Bernice said softly as she took the cup in. “It was a long-standing Christmas tradition. I’d buy him a funny coffee cup. Sometimes it was just a really cute one I saw at the Dollar Store. And while he was in prison, I kept up the tradition and continued to buy them.” She wiped at a tear. “I was moving apartments one day last year and the box just disappeared out of my pile of boxes. I thought I’d left it at the old place, or someone stole it off the sidewalk when I’d been moving. It’d broken my heart to know that all his presents were gone. But seeing these…”
It had only occurred to me then that Bernice had gone unnervingly silent when Mable had brought the coffee cups in and set them down in front of us.
“Do you think he stole them?” I wondered aloud.
“Someone did.” Bernice smiled.
“You don’t think it was him?” Mable asked.
Bernice hesitated.
“Mable knows,” I said softly. “Her husband was in the same boat as Creed.”
“Oh.” Bernice looked relieved, thinking she’d already said too much. “I’m going to have to be more careful.”
“Just keep hanging out with us, and we can talk about it among ourselves,” Mable offered.
“Well, we don’t have to worry about that with me. I have five friends,” I offered up.
“What do you think’s going to happen next?” Mable asked quietly after my words had settled. “I can’t believe Cody would do something like that. And be stupid enough to get caught. This is crazy.”
Everyone and their brother knew that you didn’t fuck with Montana Game Wardens.
They were like the boogeyman of the state.
And to be caught not only hunting out of season, but hunting moose at that?
This wasn’t going to be swept under the rug. This was going to raise a huge stink that the entire state would be hearing about.
That was exactly what Creed needed…
There was a knock at the door, and I got up. “That’s gotta be Charleigh.”
But it wasn’t Charleigh.
It was Dad and Grace.
“What the…”
I opened the door hesitantly and said, “What’s up?”
They both looked wrecked.
I could imagine this day hadn’t gone all too well for them.
“Where is he?” my dad asked.
“Where is who?” I asked.
“Don’t play dumb with me right now, Birdee.” He growled. “Where. Is. He?”
I shook my head. “If you’re talking about Creed, he’s not here.”
That was the only “he” I could think that they’d be looking for. But weren’t they at the hospital with him?
“His truck is literally right there!”
I cringed at the way my father raised his voice.
His body shook with the emotion roaring through him. I flinched away from him, causing my arm to jolt.
I glanced to the side and sure enough, Creed’s truck was there.
But he hadn’t come through the front door…
“He must still be out here,” I admitted. “Because he didn’t come inside. He…”
“Don’t lie to me!”
I froze solid at Grace’s screech of outrage.