Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 277(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
“Hell of a distance for a dog to wander in the snow. Little Hope is ten miles away. Pilgrim’s Peak is farther.”
“Maybe somebody abandoned him out here.”
I nod. “It’s likely. It’d take a real lowlife to do something like that, but people do much worse.”
She looks at me bleakly as if she knows what I’m hinting at—all the things I’ve seen in my line of work and all the hell I’ve witnessed.
“Yeah,” she says, sighing, looking at me closely. “Should I make up a bed for him? Should we give him a name?”
“Don’t know about a name,” I say uneasily. “He’ll only be staying here until I get word from my contacts about Rafael. I’m not adopting him.”
“I didn’t say that.” She seems angry for some reason. “But we have to call him something, don’t we?”
“He seems happy enough with his chicken and blankets,” I say.
“Well, I’m going to call him… Rusty because his fur has a faint orange tinge to it, see? It bleeds through his fur. I bet it would show up even more under some proper lighting.”
“You sound like you’re getting an idea,” I say.
“Maybe I could paint him,” she shrugs. “He seems pretty chill. He’d probably sit still for me, and it would give me something to do.”
“Aren’t you worried?” I ask.
“Do you want me to be?” she says, seeming angry again, making me burn all the way through. There’s something so intoxicating about her sassiness. It makes me want to own her, right now, grab her and—“Because I could be, you know. I could think about this psycho and everything he’s done and everything he’d do to us.”
“I won’t let that happen,” I snap.
“Then don’t ask if I’m worried,” she snaps back. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about anything except Rusty and painting and…” You, she was going to say, but she cuts herself off. It doesn’t matter. I can read the message in her eyes.
“Fair enough,” I say as emotionlessly as I can. “Did you bring your painting supplies?”
“Yeah.”
“Well done for sticking to it,” I murmur. “I remember how much you loved painting as a kid.”
“I used to paint you,” she says, looking at me daringly. “Then I felt silly, and I burned them all. It was supposed to stop my crush.”
“Your crush,” I say, shaking my head. “See, Emma, there’s another reason.”
“Another reason for what?” She tilts her head at me, and then Rusty whines as if backing her up. I get what she’s doing. She’s daring me to address the smoldering between us, daring me to kiss her again and taste her.
I don’t answer. She already knows what—another reason this has to end. Standing, I pick up a few blankets. “I’ll make a bed for Rusty.”
When I walk away, Rusty stands, and the blanket falls from him. He follows close at my heels.
“I think it’s obvious where he wants to sleep,” Emma says. I don’t turn to look at her, but somehow, I can tell she’s smiling.
I sit at my window, the tablet open in my lap. It shows all my cameras stationed around the property in night-vision. Soon, I’ll have to talk to Mike about watching the place in shifts. The snow comes down in thick folds, the ground seeming to swell. It might turn into a blizzard soon.
Rusty sleeps in the corner, swaddled in blankets. Occasionally, he wakes, whines, and looks over at me. It’s like he’s trying to make sure I’m still here. There was something in Emma’s eyes when she saw me with the dog, something so warm, so inviting, somehow like she was imagining a future together. Ha, ha, ha.
“What future would that be, eh?” I ask quietly, a whisper, so only Rusty, with his powerful dog ears, could hear me. “What sort of life could we have together?”
I shake my head. Rusty is watching me like I’m insane. He pads over to me and rubs his beard against my leg. I stroke him on the scruff of the neck, watching the cameras, the snow settling, moving even higher. It’s burying us just like my desire, just like the heat I can’t stop feeling.
“War is easier,” I tell Rusty. “It’s simpler.”
In a fucked-up way, I almost hope Rafael shows up. Then I’ll be able to let out some of this pain streaking through me. I wince when my back wound rubs against my shirt. Every so often, it’ll spike with pain, as if reminding me of what happened.
“Are you excited for Emma to paint you, boy?” I ask Rusty.
He looks up at me, head tilted, like he’s saying, You’re cracking up, Jacob. Get it together.
CHAPTER NINE
EMMA
“Pancakes?” Dad says after knocking on my bedroom door. His voice is way too cheery. I should’ve gotten used to the guilt by now, gnawing away at me, but instead, it seems new and freshly cruel each time I speak with him.