Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 60905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
“Really?” Cole sounded skeptical.
“Can you show us how to find that info?” Brady asked.
“Sure,” I said. Clearly, it was the headache talking, because the last thing I wanted to do was to help my jailers.
“But what about this week?” Penny asked.
Cole chuckled. “We could use you at city council meetings. You’d keep us from straying too far from the agenda.”
“You’re on the city council?” For some reason, it wasn’t a total surprise. Cole had a certain gravitas to him.
“Yeah. I work for Donovan’s Mill part-time. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to firm up our schedule for the week. We’ve both got to work.”
“What do you do?” Penny asked Brady.
He grinned. “I cook at a local diner.”
That tracked. “So, what, you don’t want to leave us alone, is that it?”
“Something like that,” Brady said with a grin. “You might miss technology so much that you run off with our radio.”
For a moment, I just stared at him, my mouth open. “You have a radio?”
He nodded.
Penny seemed just as shocked as I was. “For, like, weather emergencies?”
“No, to listen to. Music, news, talk shows, and the like.” Brady seemed puzzled by our astonishment.
Good god. These guys listened to the radio. Not Spotify. Not music from their phones. Not even YouTube… but an actual radio. My head ached worse as I contemplated that.
“Moving on,” Cole said in his deep voice that did actually sound like it belonged in a city council meeting, “we agreed to replace the technology we’re denying you this week. So we need to know what a typical week would look like for you. Besides recording videos and live streams, what else do you do each day?”
“Exercise,” I said instantly. “I usually run in the morning.”
“Excellent,” Brady said. “You can do that here.”
“You have a treadmill?”
“No, we have a forest.”
“You expect me to run in the woods?” Where, most likely, the uneven ground would trip me, or a snake would fall down on my head?
“We could hike instead,” he suggested.
“Hike?” It sounded like a foreign word.
“You love to walk around downtown,” Penny pointed out.
“Where there are sidewalks. And people to watch. And hot chocolate shops to stop at.”
Brady waved a dismissive hand my way. “You can get all that out here. Except for the sidewalks. And there are no people to watch, but hey, squirrels are fascinating little critters. As for the hot chocolate, I can make you some when we get back.”
“We’re really hiking?”
“Why not? I work the evening shift at the diner, so my morning’s free.”
I shook my head and then immediately regretted it. “I need aspirin.”
“I can get you some of that, too,” Brady said. He had a cheerful answer for everything, which at the moment was as annoying as hell.
But after our meeting wrapped up ten minutes later, I didn’t say no when he brought me two pills and a bottle of water. Today, I’d take all the help I could get.
13
LILA
“Isn’t this more fun than walking around a dirty city, breathing in the smog?” Brady asked from ten paces ahead of me.
“Nope,” I said truthfully. I was a city girl, through and through, and I loved walking around Chicago. “But I have to admit… it doesn’t suck.”
Brady laughed. “Were you expecting it to?”
“Pretty much.”
“Well, glad you changed your mind.” He turned and waited for me. The long-sleeved shirt he wore was tight enough to reveal that he wasn’t breathing hard. That, along with his tight jeans, the small pack on his back, and his well-worn hiking boots made him look right at home out here on the trail. “And I can admit, it’s nice walking downtown, too. It’s an entirely different experience, but you can still stretch your legs, and there’s a lot to see.”
“Do you get to Chicago often?”
“Once or twice a year. I like to walk by the lakefront when I can.”
“I like that, too.”
“Do you live far from it?”
“Ten or eleven blocks.”
“Can you translate that into miles?”
“No,” I said, and we both laughed.
But mostly, we hiked in silence, with Brady leading the way. I didn’t mind, because as he’d said, the view was great. Both the natural view, and the one of his backside in his faded blue jeans.
Of course, he didn’t know I considered that last part a great addition to the scenery. At least I hoped he didn’t.
We walked on, and I couldn’t get enough of the fresh air. It was pine scented, but in a natural way, not like the air freshener you sprayed out of a bottle.
When we’d set out, I’d stared at the ground, not wanting to trip over a fallen tree branch, or even worse—something alive. But now I felt confident enough to look around. Even without Brady’s fine form, there was a ton to look at. Evergreens and pines, and a whole bunch of other trees I couldn’t name surrounded us.