Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 82767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Joe will be around – he knows what needs done.”
“He will,” nodded Chris, then laughed. “Mind he does what you say, though. He thinks you’re here for some sort of hobby and you’ll get bored soon enough.”
“And what do you think?” I laughed, hiding the fact that I was slightly annoyed. But Joe had been working for Chris a long time, and he was entitled to his opinion.
“I told him your hands are soft but you got Lady into a harness two minutes after meeting her, and she’s the stubbornest mare we ever had on the farm, so I reckon you’ll do okay.” He nodded and jumped into his beat-up old Chevy, heading down the lumpy lane to the main road.
In truth, I was a bit worried about how I might cope. He was right; I had a knack for horses. I had learned from my grandfather and spent my early teenage summers working for him on his farm and traveling with him to other horse breeders across the country. Until I had been distracted by the lure of friends and music and girls back in the city, horses had been my life. It was time to reconnect with that side of myself.
I made my way out across the yard. It was a big house and a big farm, and it rolled right down to the coast. I had taken one of the horses right down to the sea one morning, and he had pranced and splashed in the cold water. It was the closest I had felt to being really alive since I had been with Freya in Dublin. And there she was again, never far from my mind. When I saw the sun rise over the sea, I thought of how she would love it, and when I fell into bed exhausted from the day’s work, I craved her body.
No amount of work, either in planning the changes that needed to happen in the place or in managing the day-to-day sweaty work of caring for the place and its animals, seemed to be enough to get her out of my mind.
Chapter 42
FREYA
I WASN’T FAMILIAR with the traditional girls’ night in, but I was pretty sure that this wasn’t it. Taylor and I sat on Beatrix’s bed – because she insisted on being involved even though she was still on strict bedrest – and we were all poring over paperwork. Every now and then one of us would show the others some item on a spreadsheet or line in a report and we would murmur over it and then add it to the growing pile on the nightstand. It was almost cozy. Stan came and went with drinks and cookies, checking each time that Beatrix wasn’t getting overtired until she told him that if he didn’t stop asking her, she would get up and go back to work in the morning. Taylor gave this threat an approving look, and I wondered how it had never occurred to me just how much these two would get along. When the final piece of paper was added to the stash, Taylor stood up and stretched.
“Okay, girl, what’s the plan? This is the running-to-the-airport scene, yeah?”
“The what?” I asked. I had no idea what she was talking about.
“The running-to-the-airport scene,” Beatrix repeated, like it was obvious.
“What airport?” I frowned at them.
They sighed and looked at one another like I was a naughty child.
“You know. When you realize your man isn’t a total asshole after all, and you run to the airport to stop him catching his plane!” Beatrix explained.
“Except in this case, you gotta take the evidence,” Taylor gestured at the paperwork. “And go prove that your man isn’t a total bastard or Dark Lord.”
“And also, he isn’t my man, and he may well still be a total bastard,” I added, confused.
“Granted, it’s not your typical rom-com, but it is what it is, so can you puh-lease get off your ass and get moving? I just booked an Uber and it is literally two blocks away,” Taylor announced.
“But I…”
“No buts!” Beatrix said. She smiled at Taylor and me as we left. I hadn’t told her about Drew. She didn’t need the stress. But together we had printed off every last item from my Clover House USB key and searched it for anything dodgy. And found nothing.
It had been Taylor’s plan to go see Keegan’s dad rather than go to the cops. Her argument was that if I could avoid having to admit to the authorities that I had actually stolen files then that would be preferable, but I wasn’t sure which option made me more nervous. It was her day off, but she had checked with Frank, and Mr. Callahan was in Keegan’s office all day, so the plan was simply to walk in there and confront him. I was glad she felt so confident, but I couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm.