Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69534 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“No problem,” I said. “Come over any time to help, and I’ll always feed you.”
Cutter’s face got serious then, and his eyes held mine as he pulled me into his chest and said, “You know, you’re not alone here. We’re always there to help, no matter what you need.”
I smiled and slapped him hard on the back before he pulled away.
Hagrid walked past, gave me a fist bump, and said, “Kinda sad I didn’t get to see that crazy nut today.”
“The bull or my sister?” I laughed.
Hagrid’s eyes sparkled as he returned, “The bull. But your sister’s a crazy nut, too, now that I think about it. We’ll see her at her graduation this weekend, though.”
I gave him a chin jerk and watched them leave before I turned around and surveyed the ol’ place.
The fence behind my back and to the right of where I was standing was the only thing about the entire area that looked solid.
The house’s sagging front porch made my stomach clench—yet another dangerous thing I needed to fix. But, at least after today, the barn doors would hold the animals that I wanted to stay in, in.
A loud moo from my side had me turning to look at my sister’s bottle-fed cow she’d raised for show last year.
She’d won first place at the state show, and had sold the heifer for thousands and thousands of dollars that would go toward her education. Then the motherfucker had given her back. Though, that wasn’t super unusual. A lot of the people that bought at the FFA livestock auctions gave the animal back.
And Scottie had been super fucking excited to get to take her back home.
Ol’ Trixie would live the rest of her years here, on the farm she was raised on, giving us healthy, show-worthy babies and begging for sugar cubes every chance she got.
“I don’t have any today,” I said as I headed toward my old truck.
I didn’t use the truck often in the summer months, preferring to ride my bike.
However, there was no fuckin’ way on God’s green Earth that I was going to put that monster on my bike.
I would be laughed out of town.
My phone rang, and I picked it up without checking the ID.
“Yeah?” I asked.
“You Posy Hicks?” the female voice—one achingly familiar—asked.
“Yes,” I answered, trying to place why it was so familiar, and coming up blank.
“You need to get down to the high school,” the female said. “There’s been an incident involving your sister.”
Then she hung up without giving me any more information.
I, of course, tried to call the person back, but it went unanswered, which only had my heart beating all the harder.
I drove my old truck as fast as I could, barreling through the small town like I didn’t expect to see the asshole cops that usually patrolled the streets like they were guarding Fort Knox.
The city of Decatur was small compared to the DFW area with only about twenty-five thousand people. And the eight cops, four of which were on a volunteer basis, that manned the streets were all a bunch of assholes.
As the crow flies, Decatur is only miles away from Dallas. However, if you had to drive it, it was well over fifty minutes on a good day.
When I was growing up, I loved the small-town life, with the opportunity of big-city things to do within easy driving distance—driving anywhere in Dallas takes you at least thirty minutes to get where you’re going, no matter where you’re headed. Forty-five is a walk in the park, considering.
The only problem was, Decatur acted like they were Dallas when they weren’t.
I always got a kick out of the pushback the town would give when the city tried to enact some city law that they didn’t agree with.
Taking one last turn into the driveway of the school, I came to a stop near the only car that was parked in the lot—an older Buick that was made in the nineties.
I got out and rounded the car to see my sister sitting on the curb, glaring hard at a young girl that was being restrained by Diner Girl.
Ahhh.
That was why she sounded so familiar on the phone.
“What’s going on?” I asked, my eyes sweeping over Scottie to make sure that she was okay.
Other than her hair being slightly askew, there wasn’t much of an issue with her.
Now the other girl looked like she was about to lose her shit.
The sister doing the holding, she looked bored, as if she did this every day.
“Had to break up a fight between these two,” she said. “Was walking back to the diner and caught sight of all this red hair.” She shook her sister. “And knew that she wasn’t going to be doing anything good. Came over here to see her fighting with this girl.”