Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
“On a Saturday?” Warren tsked. “You young men. Nothing keeps till Monday anymore.”
“Occupational hazard.” Soren teed up and swung. The shot leaked left, sinking straight into the rough, and he cursed under his breath.
As soon as Warren was distracted again, Soren fired a text to Marie.
Mechanical issue on the Gulfstream, no ETA. Find me a charter. Anything wheels-up before noon.
The reply came before the phone cleared his pocket.
On it. Give me ten.
Ten minutes he didn’t have. Every hole was seven or eight minutes gone. Warren’s unhurried putts were bleeding the clock, and he was about to snap by the sixth hole.
“Soren,” the older man snapped, tearing Soren’s focus from his phone. Warren stood over his ball on the green, putter in hand, watching him with a mild, impatient regard. “Am I boring you, son?”
The endearment fell flat this time, hitting some nerve his father had beaten to shit years ago. “Not at all. My apologies.” He pocketed the phone. “There’s just a small fire I’m putting out. It’s handled.”
“Your shot.”
The phone buzzed against his hip. Every part of him wanted to answer but he ignored it. It buzzed again. When he finally crouched to read his line, rolled the putt, missed by a foot, only then did he steal a glance, holding the phone where the older man wouldn’t catch him.
If there was an alternate flight home, Marie would find it.
Nothing private before 2. Commercials are worse. Still digging.
Mother fucker!
The phone flared in his palm with an incoming call from Jocelyn.
“Soren. We’re holding up the group behind us.”
He fumbled the phone, and his thumb clumsily bumped the call to voicemail. “Damn it,” he cursed.
“Problem?”
“No.” He lied, burying the phone in his pocket. “No problem.”
It buzzed once more against his leg. A text, this time. He could tell by the clipped vibration.
Warren watched him like a hawk.
Soren stepped up to putt as Warren grabbed a drink from the back of the golf cart. He quickly checked his phone. Four texts. One from Coyle saying it wasn’t looking good. Another from Marie saying she’d checked everywhere. The earliest flight back to Portland she could find wouldn’t make it in time for the party.
Last was a text from Jocelyn. It was the only thing in that moment capable of making him smile.
Remind me again why I volunteered to do this? I fucking hate surprises—apparently, even when I’m not the one being surprised.
He smothered a laugh and texted Marie, telling her to find him a rental car. He was making it to that fucking baby shower come hell or high water.
CHAPTER 16
“PRESSURE, PRESSING DOWN ON ME, PRESSING DOWN ON YOU”
The power hadn’t come back on until eight that morning. Jocelyn had spent the last hour of the outage in the dark with a flashlight propped in a coffee mug, hair dripping from a cold shower, cursing the storm that had rolled over Hideaway Bay the night before and dragged the grid down with it.
Her phone—not charging all night like she told it to—died sometime before her alarm was scheduled to wake her up. And now, on a day when she planned to take a bazillion pictures, she was running late, dealing with air-dried, frizzy hair, and less than half a charge.
The second the lights flickered on, she’d attacked her hair with the blow dryer, but it was too late, so she flat-ironed the shit out of the frizz, accidentally burning herself twice. Not that it mattered. In a coastal town, the day after a storm, the air was more water than oxygen and the second she stepped outside her hair swelled up like the untamable mane of a sea witch.
Already an hour behind, she sped into town only able to shoot Soren a quick text letting him know that she was, in fact, crazy for thinking she would be able to pull this off with any sort of calm.
“God, I hate surprises,” she muttered, whipping around a bend as the mason jars clanked in the backseat.
Hauling ass toward town, her brain did a quick calculation of the day ahead. It was already ten o’clock. The surprise went off at two-thirty. Guests would start pouring in at two.
Who was she kidding? There was bound to be a few old birds who would undoubtedly arrive early. It was best to try to get everything guest-ready by one thirty. That would leave her fifteen minutes to freshen up before things truly went crazy.
Four and a half hours—
No, three and a half. Shit.
“Come on, come on, come on, come on.” As soon as the traffic light turned, she sped through the intersection toward Main Street.
Three and a half hours was doable. She only had to transport all the décor, dress the room, and see that all the favors and signage made it to the right places. And the cake. She couldn’t forget about the cake.