Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 132892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 664(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
“Tell me you aren’t staying with your ex again.”
“No way. Dad has an evaluation with a specialist, and I need to drop off some deliveries. With luck we’ll come back the same day, but I figured I’d take enough for us to spend the night if we need to. Hotel room, I promise. And I’ll sleep better knowing we’re ready to evacuate—I doubt it’ll come to that, but better to be safe.”
Gage leaned down, giving me a soft, lingering kiss. The low hum of desire that’d been running through me all night flared to life, and I tamped it down firmly.
“Tomorrow night,” he said.
“Let me think about it.”
“I’ll pick you up at six.”
A smile tugged at my mouth, despite my better judgment. He smiled back at me.
“Said I wouldn’t give up. We’ll figure it out, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now, go pack a bag. Just in case. Oh, and if you change your mind and want me to stay over, just text.”
Rolling my eyes, I flipped him off and he laughed. So the night was crazy, he’d all but admitted he was a criminal, Brandon was on the take, and there were huge fires in the hills all around us. Strangely enough, at the end, it was still one of the better dates I’d ever had.
Carrie was never, ever going to let me live this one down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The next morning I didn’t wake up until after eight, a luxury I hadn’t had in years, and one I certainly couldn’t afford at that point.
“Fuck,” I muttered, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I’d forgotten to set my alarm, but usually the sun woke me up before it went off anyway. The light in the room was weird, though. Dim and sort of yellowish.
Forcing myself to get up, I wandered over to the window and opened the semitranslucent curtains.
“Well, that sucks,” I muttered. The sky was deeply overcast with smoke, giving everything an orange tinge. Very post-apocalyptic. We’d had it happen before during fire seasons, so I knew it wasn’t necessarily a big deal. Still, it was a little unsettling, given the evacuation warning.
I grabbed my phone and searched for the county’s Facebook page, then sighed with relief. Still just a level one, although it looked like the fires had grown. Reaching for my robe, I pulled it on over my sleep shorts and top, then started down the stairs in search of coffee.
“Morning, sweetheart,” Dad said when I walked into the kitchen. He had a piece of toast in front of him, along with the newspaper. Blessedly, he’d also made coffee.
“Morning,” I said, giving him a kiss on the head.
“Fires are getting bad,” he told me. “They’ve put out a level-two alert for Lamont. Still forty miles away, though. We should be fine.”
“I was thinking you should pack a bag this morning just in case,” I replied. “I know they’ll protect the town, but we have to go to Seattle tomorrow anyway. Kills two birds with one stone. Oh, and we need to send in your medical history today, too. Let me grab the paperwork. Can you go get your prescriptions?”
“I hate doctors,” he said, frowning. “I still don’t see why we need to do this. So what if I’m forgetting things? Hate to break it to you, but that’s what happens when you get old.”
“Humor me,” I said tightly. “Maybe there’s a medicine that will help.”
He snorted, shaking his head, but he shoved the rest of his toast in his mouth and then left the kitchen to get his meds.
• • •
The forms were more complicated than I’d realized.
We started working on them at eight thirty, and an hour later we still weren’t finished. In addition to the basic history, there’d been a behavioral questionnaire for me to fill out, and one for him to fill out, too. Now we were down to listing his prescriptions, thank God.
“What’s this for?” I asked, holding up a bottle.
“Blood pressure,” he said. I wrote it down and then reached for another, feeling vaguely guilty that I hadn’t gone through these before. He’d always been such a private person about his health, though.
That and you were in denial, my common sense pointed out.
Yeah, you got me on that one.
“Be right back,” Dad said. “Need some water.”
“Sounds good—grab a glass for me, too,” I murmured, reaching for the last bottle. Amitriptyline. I wrote down the name, then rotated it to see the dosage. My mother’s name stared up at me accusingly.
Huh.
I thought I’d cleared all her stuff out. Weird. I started to set it down, then noticed something very strange. The date was from just last month.
What the hell?
“Dad!” I shouted.
“Yeah?”
“C’mere. I found this bottle and it doesn’t make any sense.”
He ambled back into the dining room, setting a glass down in front of me. I held out the little bottle to him, and he frowned.