Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“Where to now?”
“It’s late. We should probably go eat at the hotel and crash. We’ll have to leave early in the morning.”
I rolled my eyes as we slid into the car. “Absolutely not. The hotel will be swamped with rodeo guys, and we need actual food.”
“You have a suggestion, Houston?”
“Yes, sir,” I teased. It was the first time since we’d checked in that he turned his full attention to me. His lips were slightly parted. Those big blue eyes roamed my face. I wondered what he was thinking in that moment. “I know just the place.”
He turned the car on. “Lead the way.”
Fifteen minutes later, we were striding inside a hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint, attached to a ratty, old gas station. In Texas, the best barbecue was always one step away from a dump. It had a tin roof and leaned slightly to the left. The tables were old picnic benches, and dry air blew in from the screened-in windows. Out back was a bar the length of the place, where regulars came and got drunk on pulled pork and ribs slathered in their signature spicy sauce.
Whitton parked his rather conspicuous Lexus in between a set of Harley-Davidson motorcycles and an old junker pickup with more rust damage than body left.
“Where the hell have you taken me?”
“Only the best barbecue in the state.”
Whitton looked skeptically at the building. “It looks one step away from a health violation.”
I put my hand to my chest. “How dare you! Lee’s is an institution.”
“If you say so.”
I strode around the car and grabbed his arm, tugging him toward the restaurant. “I swear, Whitton, we’re going to have to find your sense of adventure.”
“I know precisely where my sense of adventure is.”
“Oh, yeah?” I asked, linking our arms together.
“Yeah. Locked up tight in a vault with everything else I don’t have time for.”
I leaned my head against his enormous bicep and looked up at him through thick lashes. “Well, hand over the key to your vault, Wright. I’m here to get you out of your comfort zone.”
“But comfort zones are comfortable.”
“Here’s the deal,” I said, dragging him to a stop before the door. “We’re off the clock. No one here knows who you are. No one here even cares. Just trust me and have some fun at least until we get home.”
His eyes searched mine for a second, as if waiting for the rug pull. I didn’t have one. This was my hometown. As complicated as my relationship was with it, we could have a good time here. A chance that we never really gave ourselves back home. Not with the entire town watching our every move and me still too fucked up by what had happened with Arnold. Why couldn’t we have some fun?
“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “You win.”
“Oh, I usually do.”
Then, I pulled him inside before he could argue.
I ordered heaps of food and cold Mexican Cokes. Whitton insisted on paying, and I didn’t even argue since it was going on the company per diem.
“To fun,” I said, holding up my glass bottle of Coke.
He clinked his glass against mine. “To fun.”
The food arrived ten minutes later with meat, potato salad, and macaroni and cheese piled high on oversize Styrofoam plates. We dug in, and it was just as incredible as I remembered. I hadn’t been here in years. My throat closed up at the thought.
“Well, you were right. It’s incredible,” Whitt said. He licked the sticky sauce off of his fingers.
“I know.”
“How’d you hear about this place?”
“Gram used to bring me here all the time. She knew the owner before he passed and his son took over.”
“Are you close with your grandma?”
“I was,” I said, emphasizing the past tense.
His face fell. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Yeah. She passed last year.” I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “It was a lot. I still miss her.”
I nearly choked on those words. I hadn’t spoken about my grandma to anyone. She’d practically raised me, been my safe harbor, and when she got dementia, the world turned upside down. Her loss had made everything exponentially harder.
“I’m sorry, Eve.”
His hand reached across the picnic table and covered mine. Electricity shot through me at the touch. The pads of his fingers sent shock waves through my system. It would have been easy to lean into that, but I didn’t want sympathy. Sympathy made me uncomfortable in the same way that adventure made him uncomfortable. I didn’t need to be vulnerable with anyone. I could handle it.
I pulled my hand back with a laugh. “Yeah. It’s fine. She was in her eighties. What can you do?” I jumped to my feet. “You done?”
He nodded, and I snatched up his plate to toss it. But not before I saw the look on his face that said I was a mystery he was trying to solve. I dumped our plates in the trash can and felt Whitt follow me. I really didn’t want to make a big deal out of this. Not when I’d just gotten him to relax some. I was about to put on some heavy bravado when I heard the worst thing in the entire world.