Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 76609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Fuck. Fucker. Fuckity fuckwad.
-Aspen’s secret thoughts
Aspen
I was officially freezing.
Was it possible to get frostbite in less than an hour?
That’s how long the power had been out.
Drew’s prediction had come true.
He’d said that the power would go out, and it had.
I just wished I had been able to prepare for it.
Even now, I had two blankets on top of me, but if it got too much colder, I’d literally start crying.
The battery operated emergency clock/thermometer I’d pulled in from the garage read forty-nine degrees, and I was cursing myself for my stupidity.
I’d already had it set at sixty-two due to the fact that I could barely afford the bills as it was, and now it was reflecting how cold it was outside seeing as there hadn’t been much heat to begin with.
“Mother of pearl,” I whined. “This is the worst month ever!”
A knock sounded at my door, and I opened it to find my brother on the other side.
“What?” I snapped.
He narrowed his eyes at me.
“I need your help,” he said.
“With what?” I asked.
“I was called into a SWAT call, and I need you to watch my kids,” he explained.
“I can’t,” I told him. “I have no power.”
“They like playing with flashlights,” he shrugged.
“It’s too cold,” I reiterated. “It’s already forty-nine degrees in here. There’s no way I’ll be able to get your kids to stay under blankets.”
“Then start a fire,” he tried.
“I don’t have any wood,” I continued, a little peeved now.
He growled in frustration.
“It’s for ten minutes, at most,” he threw up his hands. “Just wrap them up, and they’ll be fine.”
Four hours later and he still wasn’t back.
I looked over at my brother’s babies.
They sure were adorable.
Sighing, I reached over and turned on the music, smiling when my favorite song came on.
I sang along quietly with Garth Brooks, trying hard not to wake the kids.
The low gas indicator dinged, and I winced.
I’d been in my car for a good three hours now, scared as hell that if I left them inside they’d freeze and get hypothermia.
I was using the car as a charger anyway.
All of my tablets that I read on for work, as well as my phone and computer, were currently plugged into every electrical outlet or cigarette lighter in the car.
The gas indicator dinged again, and I bit my lip.
I sure wished I could actually drive my car. I’d take the kids over to my mom’s place.
Not that I had any car seats, but the neighbor next door let me use her spares when I needed to go pick the kids up from daycare on the rare occasion that Downy let me have them.
Not that I knew her number, and I wasn’t allowed to go into her yard anymore, so it was all a moot point.
I closed my eyes, ignoring the way the gas indicator dinged again, and fell into a light sleep.
And woke up what felt like seconds later, but was probably more like an hour or more.
The car was cold again, and the kids were still bundled up sleeping in the backseat.
I turned my head, smiling at not just my brother’s wife, Memphis, but Drew as well.
Instead of losing what heat was left in the car and rolling the window down, I pushed the door open and quickly closed it.
“Hey,” I said breathlessly.
“I’m so sorry,” Memphis, apologized, throwing her arms around me. “I couldn’t get off, and Downy’s at a stupid SWAT call still.”
“Gonna be a couple of hours or more,” Drew offered his thoughts.
I furrowed my brows.
“How do you know?” I asked.
He held up his handheld radio to me.
“I’m listening to it,” he wiggled the radio. “They’ve got a man that refuses to come out of his house, and he’s holding his family hostage.”
It was then I took in his attire.
“Why are you dressed in SWAT clothes?” I asked in alarm.
He was a firefighter, wasn’t he?
I wasn’t lusting after some cop, was I?
I couldn’t do another cop. Not after what Danny had done to me. So all the time I’d been having certain thoughts about a certain firefighter had been a lie! He was a cop. Well, sort of. SWAT team meant cop, didn’t it?
A chill swept over me.
“I’m a medic on the SWAT team,” he explained. “I wasn’t needed yet, since they weren’t going in, and Memphis couldn’t find you and called Downy. I was sent.”
I blinked.
“I have an ankle monitor,” I pointed to the offending thing that made all my clothes look funny at that ankle. “Why would you think I was anywhere else but home? There would be cop cars here by now if that was the case.”
Memphis looked sheepish.
“I’m afraid that was my fault,” she explained. “I couldn’t get into your house because it’s locked, and you weren’t answering the door. I forgot my phone, but I had the radio in my car, and I called into dispatch.”