Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 73716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Audrey’s eyebrows rose in interest.
“What would you do?” I asked. “If you were there watching that happen, would you act?”
She thought about it. Then shook her head. “I don’t know.”
My mouth formed into a grin.
“What about you?”
I asked the guy in the front row.
He was an oil field guy, and the little nametag I’d given him earlier declared him as ‘Dayton P.’
“I’d act. I’d take the van’s tires out. Anything I needed to do to get that girl out of the van.”
“And you’d have been in the wrong,” I told him.
His eyes narrowed, and I clearly saw the anger on his face.
He was one of those guys that I had a feeling would get a hero complex when he finally got that concealed carry permit. He thought he was invincible, and he’d be the type of guy who would act before thinking.
“Why?” he barked.
I stared at him for a long moment and then turned my attention back to the rest of the class.
Today’s class had fifteen students total, the majority of whom were men from the volunteer fire department one town over.
Each of them was looking at the guy in the front of the class. The one who’d been spitting dip into a clear plastic bottle for the last hour of class.
I looked away from that bottle.
It really grossed me out.
There was this one time, as a kid, that my father left his dip spit cup out on the counter. Thinking it was mine, I’d taken a big swig, realized instantly that it wasn’t mine and had promptly blown chunks all over the kitchen, which my father had then made me clean up.
“What you don’t know is that the girl was a runaway, and the two masked men forcing her into the van were her brother and her father. By law, the two men did nothing wrong, but you would have been in the wrong for pulling your gun out on them and discharging it without just cause,” I answered. “So yes, there can be multiple things playing out at once. If you don’t have the full picture, then it’s possible that you could be acting without cause.”
“Plot twist,” Audrey grinned.
She then raised her hand.
I raised my brow at her.
“I have to use the bathroom. Can we have a break?”
I rolled my eyes to the clock, my eyes widening slightly. “It’s only been an hour.”
She shrugged. “I had coffee. And you didn’t let me go before we left.”
Goddamn, she was cute.
“Yeah, we can take one,” I agreed with a sigh. “Everyone, take ten minutes.”
The room emptied of everyone except Audrey.
“I thought you had to pee.”
She nodded. “I do.”
“Then why aren’t you going?” I pushed.
She stared at me.
“I want you to take me to the nice bathroom. Not the one you let guests use,” she ordered.
I cocked a brow at her in question.
“That man just came out of there, and he spent a good ten minutes in there while we were talking about where we could and could not take our guns. I don’t want to go into a stinky bathroom.”
I just rolled my eyes and jerked my head. “This way.”
We passed by the front door on the way, and I saw the people who had left the room loitering outside, smoking.
“What did you do?” she asked as she followed closely behind me. “Hit up some smoker’s anonymous group to get them to come to your concealed weapon class?”
My lips twitched. “No.”
She stopped when she saw a picture of my mom and me.
“Is that your mom?”
In order not to answer her, because I knew she’d have questions if I told her that it was, I said, “And to answer your question about the group, they’re the volunteer fire department.” I gestured to the empty bedroom. “The bathroom’s through there, just hang a left once you go through the door.”
She eyed me warily.
“Is this the master bath?”
I nodded.
“Okay.” She left without saying another word, and I was left wondering what it mattered if it was the master bath or not.
She’d told me to take her to the nice one, and other than the one that was in the horse barn outside, this was the only other one there was beside the one she refused to use.
Though, now that I thought about it, I’d left the lube out on the counter I’d been using this morning before heading out to get the complicated girl who never strayed far from my thoughts.
I absently lifted my hand up to run it over the scar that was now a magnet for my hands when I was stressed.
It was an ugly scar.
A few months ago, I’d been going to Ghost’s house to help him when I was shot in the neck. Some men had been after Ghost and his wife, and I’d never seen it coming.
I probably should have, of course.