Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“No, you are! We’ve been here for weeks, Max! Weeks! And you still haven’t tried to deal with any of it! It’s like you think we can just bury our heads in the sand and live in this house and not worry about the outside world. It doesn’t work that way. Eventually someone will find you, and they’ll shoot first and ask questions later! Is that what you want, Max? Do you want me to stand and watch the man I love, die in front of my very eyes?”
It takes me a minute to grasp what she is saying. She’s yelling at me, and her body is shaking from the depth of fear she has inside of her. There are tears in her eyes and rolling down her face, and I really think this is it. It’s over. Then her words crash on me. She loves me? She has to be talking out of her head. She’s only known me for three weeks or so. Still. If she thinks she loves me, I need to encourage that. I need to wrap her up tight to me, so she doesn’t get away.
“You love me, Kitten?”
“I don’t want to talk about this with you, Max,” she says turning away to walk on into the house. The sky picks that moment to open up and hard, cool rain drenches us, and everything around us.
“Answer the fucking question, Tess. Do you love me?” I yell over the hard falling rain and booming of thunder in the distance.
“No, Max! Of course not! I don’t love you! How on Earth could I love you?” she asks, and my chest hurts. I don’t know why it was important, but the thought that she loved me…mattered. Her answer just adds salt to the wound she’s already opened. “I studied you for a solid month, reading everything I could about you. I spent weeks pouring over the laws and precedents to make sure you had every shot of getting parole. Then you take me hostage and wow, look, weeks later and I’m still here! I threw my life away to go on the run with you. I only give you my body every damn night! How could that equal love, right? See, Max? This is why you are a moron! Of course I fucking love you! Because the truth is I’m a moron too! I’m a freaking lunatic!”
The rain has plastered her shirt and hair to her body. She’s breathing hard, and she’s so soaked I can’t tell where her tears start, and the rain begins. But again, I feel hope. It’s a strange feeling for a man who has never had a heart, to suddenly feel.
“Then go away with me, Tess.”
“I am…what did you say?”
“Marcum got us new ID’s and papers. Go with me Tess we’ll cross the border and start a new life. One together.”
“I…Max…”
“What do you have here, Tess? There’s nothing here for either of us.”
“I…Max, this doesn’t solve our problems, it’s just running away.”
“We can have a life together, Tess. It may not be the life you pictured before. But it would be a life.”
“And if they catch you? What happens then, Max?”
“We’ll face that together. Give me this, Tess. Give us this chance.”
“Max…”
“I’m asking you, to give us time together, Tess. I’ve never asked anyone for one thing in my life until you came into my life. I asked Marcum for his help, and now I’m asking you to do this with me. Say, yes.”
I hold my breath waiting for her answer.
“You’re crazy, Max.”
“Is that a yes or a no, Tess.”
“I’m crazy,” she whispers, her head down. “I’m standing in the rain, soaked and wet, talking about fleeing for the border with an escaped murderer. They make cheesy made-for-television movies from this shit, Max. You’ve turned me into a cliché!”
“Answer the fucking question, Tess.”
“Go fuck yourself, Max! Quit telling me what to do! This isn’t easy! What you’re asking is a lot! A hell of a lot!”
“Fine then! I’ll have Marcum and the boys take you into Ormond tomorrow. To hell with it!”
She looks at me, and her face is unreadable for a moment and then…then everything changes.
“It’s so easy for you, right, Max? Just send me on my way. Simple. Easy. Clean. No harm no foul.”
She stands there acting like I have nothing invested. Maybe I don’t; compared to her. I know I am living on borrowed time as it is. That still doesn’t make this shit easy. This is her fucking fault anyway. Walking into the prison and fucking up my life—making me want. Fuck her if she’s leaving anyway, I’ll show her exactly what being with a man like me is all about.
I stalk over to her. It’s a mere six steps, but they are steps that announce I’m done. Her eyes grow large, even with the deluge of rain pounding us both. I grab her by the neck, yanking her roughly into my body. “There’s not a damn thing that’s easy about this, Kitten. There’s not a fucking thing easy about me.”