Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
I looked toward the sound of that voice to find my electrician drinking a beer and glaring hard at Audrey.
Whoa.
“Marry him. Right now,” Nettie whisper-hissed.
I looked away before he could turn his gaze on us—because Nettie hadn’t been quiet—and pulled out my phone to pretend like I wasn’t listening.
“What are you talking about, doll?”
Doll.
Gag.
“Denver,” Weaver growled, sounding even less patient than his earlier obvious impatience. “Do me a favor since you know her father so well…deal with her.”
I could hear the absoluteness in Weaver’s voice, even over the loud pounding of Lynyrd Skynyrd coming through the jukebox’s speakers and the yelling of the patrons of the bar.
Audrey, however, played the victim card well.
“Denver?” I could practically see Audrey’s lip quivering. She was about to pull out the waterworks. She was good at that. “What’s his problem?”
Jeez, she was good at that. Though, I’d known that since middle school when she’d cut my hair off while seated behind me and then had gotten me in trouble for punching her in the face.
Whomever Denver was, said something low, and then Audrey was covering her face and hurrying toward the bathroom.
“Sweet Mary Mother of God,” Weaver spoke. “Where the fuck do women like this come from? It’s because they were fed bad shit while in the womb, isn’t it?”
Nettie giggled.
And even though Weaver wasn’t talking to either one of us, we still heard his every word as he spoke with the man beside him.
A man named Beau.
I, at least, knew Beau.
Beaufort Abraham Vanderbilt had graduated the year that I’d been a freshman. He was rich, the hottest guy in school, and so far out of everyone’s league that he hadn’t dated a single soul in the four years that I’d known him.
His father was a rich oil tycoon who owned a twenty-nine-million-dollar, thousand-acre horse ranch just south of Sawtooth. It was so big and beautiful, in fact, that you could see it jutting out the side of the Crazy Mountains.
I hadn’t even realized he was back, but seeing him now, he looked like he wasn’t the same person.
The only reason I knew it was him was due to the V tattooed on his left bicep and the pale amber eyes.
Every Vanderbilt had them.
Oh, and the dimples.
But Beau had a thick beard covering the lower half of his face, saving the female population of Sawtooth from those panty-dropping dimples.
“I didn’t know Beau was back,” Nettie whispered.
“Me, neither,” I admitted. “He looks good. Rough.”
“Scary,” she corrected. “I didn’t know he was part of the Dixie Wardens, either.”
“Same,” I said. “Do you think he’s back for good?”
“No idea,” she admitted in a quiet whisper—or as quiet as you could get and still be heard over Lynyrd. “I feel like we’re in a bar with the hottest people in the world. All of these are members of the MC?”
I looked around, spotting all the leather and muscle.
“It’s been added to over the last year,” I explained. “Some of these guys are new. I’ve never seen them before. There are others that I’ve seen around town before, at the grocery store and at the diner. But I couldn’t tell you their names.”
“Jesus,” Nettie hissed in a desperate breath, alcohol frying her brain. “Who is that?”
I looked over to see who she was talking about and frowned when I saw the back of Boone’s head. I mean, he did have a new haircut, but otherwise he’d looked exactly the same as the last time that she’d come home and fucked his brains out. “That’s Boone, dillweed.”
Nettie gasped a little bit too loud because the word ‘Boone’ was out of her mouth right when Lynyrd finished up singing about Freebirds.
Which, of course, was loud enough to be heard by the entirety of the bar.
“Yes,” I groaned quietly under my breath. “Do not make a…” but she was already out of her chair and yelling. “…scene.”
“Boone?” Nettie sneered at Boone. “Get anyone pregnant accidentally lately?”
Boone froze when he saw Nettie.
They weren’t fooling anyone.
I knew that they saw each other regularly. They just liked to pretend that they didn’t. Boone’s mother was a psycho, and our mother wasn’t much better. So it was better for all parties involved if everyone thought they didn’t know each other. But this felt like a bad episode of Days of Our Lives.
“Antoinette Reilley Wheeler, as I live and breathe.” Boone walked closer.
Swaggered, actually.
“I just don’t see you as a Boone.” Nettie crossed her arms over her chest.
The crowd between us cleared out, obviously sensing the tension in the air.
Even the music had been cut off.
Fuck.
It was as if the universe knew that the world was about to go into a cataclysmic event, as it always did, when Nettie and Boone locked horns.
“I kind of like Bart better,” Nettie said. “Kind of creepy, and it reminds me to hate you.”