Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Why didn’t he work longer hours?
Just as I reached the door to the back staircase, I heard a deep voice clearing his throat. Crap! Where had he come from?
“I’m just borrowing a book and going back to the attic,” I said, turning around to glare at him. Which might have been more successful if he wasn’t once again shirtless and this time in a pair of athletic shorts and tennis shoes. “Do you not own many shirts?” I asked, annoyed that I wanted to ogle him.
He smirked. “It’s hot out, and I’m taking Slash out for a run.”
Oh. Well, fine.
I focused on the railing behind him and waited for him to say whatever it was he had come to say. Perhaps he was taking me home soon.
“Dinner will be ready at seven,” he said. “Ellen will serve it in the dining room.”
I swung my eyes back up to meet his, taking utmost care not to linger on any of the bulging muscles covered in artwork. “And this affects me how?” I asked.
“Do you want to eat?”
Yes. I enjoyed Ellen’s cooking.
“Won’t she be bringing it up to the attic, or can I come get it and take it up myself tonight?”
The corner of his mouth quirked. “If you want to eat, then you will do so in the dining room.”
Oh. With him? Why?
“Let’s go, Slash,” he said before waiting on a response from me.
I should have left then, walked up the stairs, but it took me a moment to remember that. Instead, I watched my dark, sexy abductor walk away with his equally beautiful dog.
He wanted me to eat with him. Fine. I could do that. Staying in the attic room made me feel caged in anyway.
Twenty-Five
Hale
“Don’t get attached,” I told Slash as we were on our way back to the house from our six-mile run around my property as well as both my sons’ properties. The closer we got to the house, the faster Slash was getting, and I knew why. He was normally slowing by this point. “She’s leaving soon!” I shouted so he could hear me.
He ignored me. I tried to warn him. If he started sulking when she was gone, I was going to be pissed. It was her fault too. He headed off around to the east corner of the house, and I figured Ellen must have the sunroom open. He wasn’t going to wait for me to let him inside. He was on a mission. Ellen had said Slash stayed in the library with Bay most of the day. She probably rubbed his head and did that baby-talking shit. She was making my dog a damn sissy.
And why had she chosen Frankenstein of all books to read? I had shit women liked in there too. I’d had a wife once and a daughter. Their books were still on the shelves. As were all of the ones my daughter-in-law had written, and that shit was romance. The explicit kind.
Probably didn’t need to start thinking about Bay reading the dirty shit that Ransom’s wife wrote. I’d never read it personally, but seeing as it was inspired by my son, that didn’t appeal to me much.
Slash sped up once we entered the gates and was ahead of me by half a mile. It was as if he knew she was eating dinner with us. Damn dog had always understood what I was saying, even when he chose to act as if he didn’t when it suited him.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I slowed to pull it out. The alert that the main gate to the property had opened wasn’t expected. I tapped the screen to see Bane’s truck pulling up the drive. I wasn’t sure if this was good or not. It could be that he was here to take Bay. I should be happy about that. I’d have my privacy and dog back. But I wasn’t, and I didn’t want to think too hard about why.
As I came to the front of the house, I waited, taking the collapsible water bottle attached to my waist and downing what I had left in there. Bane’s truck came into view just as I finished. If this was about Bay, wouldn’t he or Linc have just called and told me what to do with her? I wanted it to be something else. Fuck, anything else. At least for tonight. Then I’d have my head on straight in the morning.
Bane’s truck door closed, and I shaded my eyes with a hand from the late afternoon sun as he walked toward me.
“Got an issue,” he said as he reached me.
“Yeah?”
He tilted the front of his brown cowboy hat back on his head, and I could see the scowl on his face. It wasn’t his typical unfriendly expression. This was his pissed-off one. Now I really hoped this shit wasn’t about Bay.