Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
My stomach sank at her words. “Baby…”
“I don’t even know why she was there. She never comes to see me. She’s made it obvious as hell that she only saw me as a necessary evil ever since I moved out.” Her breath hitched. “My dad is going to fucking flip.”
He was.
If the woman was the chief’s wife… Shit.
Ambulance sirens sounded in the distance, and I looked up in time to see the bus round the corner of the intersection and head our way. At the same instant a couple of units came in from another direction.
One of those units was the K-9 unit that Garrett was using.
He got out, his eyes taking everything in, including me holding C Spine on Maven.
The ambulance rolled up next, two medics bolting from the vehicle.
One came to my side and the other went to Maven’s dead stepmother.
“Deceased,” I said when he looked at me.
He nodded but checked her pulse anyway.
The paramedic on my side came to me and immediately started asking questions.
Firefighters were next to arrive, and within ten minutes everyone was on the way to the hospital. Including me.
“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded. “Please. He’ll be so mad, and I don’t want to be by myself when he comes.”
The way she was so desperately holding onto my hand was enough for me to acquiesce despite knowing the chief was going to lose his shit on me. That, and the fear I could see in her eyes.
Good thing I’d already interviewed with Sunnyvale. I had a feeling I was about to need that new job sooner rather than later.
The medic pushed me into a seat in the corner, and I was forced to let go of Maven’s hand or risk strangling her with our connection.
Which she most certainly didn’t like and allowed everyone to know about.
“Baby, hush,” I said as I leaned over and whispered into her ear. “Let him work and answer his questions.”
She calmed when she felt my hand in her hair and my breath against her face.
“Do you remember hitting your head?” The medic repeated his earlier question.
She sniffled, and the tears that were trailing from the corners of her eyes into her ears were killing me one drop at a time.
The feeling in the pit of my stomach wasn’t one I’d ever experienced before.
“Not on the dashboard. On my own hand. I lifted it right before we hit and my ring caught my forehead,” she answered, lifting her ringed finger and pantomiming what had happened. “I had my seatbelt on, thank God.”
Sure enough, when I looked down, the ring she was wearing was one I’d had in my truck. A plastic thing that I’d gotten for Dalia on a whim. The last time I’d seen it it’d still been in the plastic container that I’d gotten out of the claw machine at the Mexican restaurant last week.
My lips tipped up at the corner at the knowledge of Maven wearing—and stealing—something I’d had a hand in getting.
“Nice ring,” I teased. “Or it was… You broke it on your face, though.”
Really broke it. As in, all the little tines that held the fake diamond in place were crushed, and the plastic bead was nowhere to be seen.
She snorted. “I would’ve given it back. I don’t even know why I took it. But then you blew me off and I forgot all about it. I actually kicked it across the room before going out to talk to my stepmom and I was admiring it on my finger when Vickie let me know that she was there to talk.
I absently started to braid her hair, my disgust with myself at leaving her alone all week because of my own problems—and I suppose hers—making itself known.
“I’m sorry, I…” I trailed off, not wanting to worry her with even more after all she’d just gone through.
“I know about what my father did,” she explained. “The ultimatum.”
I froze. “You do?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Your mom came by the bakery. Said you were dealing with my father’s shit. And also told me to give you some time to sort things out.”
Unreal. Could my mom not stay out of everyone’s lives for even a second?
I would’ve laughed at the situation had it been one you laughed at during the retelling.
I closed my eyes. “My mama has a big mouth.”
“Your mother wants what’s best for you.” She paused. “My mother was actively trying to keep us apart. I told her about you, and she said maybe there was a reason that Dad didn’t want us together. And that he always knows best.”
“I don’t know whether to strangle my mom or thank her—though my dad might have a few thoughts on the strangling part,” I admitted.
We slowed and then stopped in what I assumed was the ambulance bay at Memorial.
The moment the back doors opened, and we were exiting the back of the bus, she held out her hand, which I caught again.