Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
There was a sleek tent pitched in the area between the garage apartment and the main house.
Beside it were two camping chairs with a lantern between them. Rhodes was sitting in one of them. There was a small bundle on the other.
“It’s not Gunnison, but we can’t have a fire here either because the ban is statewide,” he said, sitting up.
Something beneath my breastbone stirred.
“I looked for your tent in the garage and in your car, but it wasn’t there. If you want to bring it down, we can set it up in a minute. But mine is a two-person.” He stopped suddenly, talking that was, and leaned forward, squinting at me in the dark. “Are you crying?”
I tried to clear my throat and went with the truth. “I’m about to.”
“Why?” he asked softly in surprise.
That thing moved around some more, sliding awfully close to my heart, and I tried to will it to stop moving.
It didn’t listen.
He’d pitched a tent.
Set up chairs.
So that I could go camping.
I squeezed my lips together, telling myself, Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it, Ora.
I better not cry. I better not cry.
I even cleared my damn throat.
And it didn’t matter.
I started to cry. Just these tiny, pitiful streams that came out of me silently once the choke was out. I didn’t make a sound, but the tears kept coming out of my eyeballs. Seasonal little streams of salt at an act of kindness I would have never in a million years expected.
Rhodes stood up, alarmed, and I tried to say, “I’m fine,” but it didn’t exactly come out.
It didn’t come out at all. Because I was trying so hard not to cry harder.
“Buddy?” Rhodes said cautiously, concern all over his tone.
I pinched my lips together.
He took another step forward and then another, and then I did the same.
I went straight toward him, still pressing my lips together, still clinging to my small amount of pride.
And when he stopped about a foot or two away, I set the plates on the ground and kept going. Straight into him. My cheek going into the space between his shoulder and collarbone, tucking myself in right there, and wrapping both arms around his waist like I had a right to. Like he would want me to.
Like he liked me and this was fine.
But he didn’t push my arms away once they were there. Once I was basically totally pressed against him, not crying-crying but tearing up into his shirt. “This is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” I whispered into his chest with a sniff.
What had to be his hand landed right smack in the center of my back.
“I’m sorry,” I pretty much whispered before attempting to keep myself together and trying to take a step back, but I couldn’t. Because the hand covering my bra strap didn’t let me. “I don’t mean to get all mopey or cry all over you. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
Another hand landed low on my back, right above the band of my jeans.
And I stopped trying to move away.
“You’re not making me uncomfortable. I don’t mind,” he said, his voice as gentle as I’d ever heard it.
He was hugging me back.
He was hugging me back.
And son of a bitch, I wanted it. So I hugged this man more, my arms going low on his waist. He was warm, and his body was solid.
And my God, he smelled like the good laundry detergent.
I could wrap him around myself and live there forever. Cologne be damned. There was nothing better than good detergent.
Especially when it was molded to a body like Rhodes’s. Big and firm. All comforting.
A man who I had thought up until not too long ago couldn’t stand me.
And now . . . well, now I was second-guessing everything.
Why would he do this? Because of Amos’s appendicitis? Because I’d saved him when his dad had come over? Or possibly because of our UTV adventure?
“You okay?” he asked as his hand hesitated on the middle of my spine before giving it another pat.
He was patting my back, like he was trying to burp me.
Affection surged through my bloodstream. Rhodes was attempting to comfort me, and I didn’t think I’d ever been so confused, not even when Kaden had told me he loved me but said we couldn’t let anyone find out about it.
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re being so nice. I really thought you didn’t like me for the longest.”
Rhodes pulled back just enough for him to tip his chin down. His eyebrows were knitted together, and his eyes bounced from one of mine to the other, and he must have realized I was serious because his features slowly softened. His grave face took over, and so did his Navy Voice. “It had nothing to do with you before, are we clear? You reminded me of someone, and I thought you were like her. It took me too long to figure out that you’re not. I’m sorry I did that.”