Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 72856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72856 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“You hit a woman,” she countered.
I shrugged. “That wasn’t a woman. That was a monster.”
“Hmm,” Winter said. “What about Ella?”
“What about her?” I asked.
“You didn’t go to jail for her, too?”
I laughed.
“Winter, I was a street punk who had a vendetta against all things asshole. You may think that I ‘go for the broken ones’ but I don’t. I was just trying to help them. They didn’t deserve to be treated like they were trash. They deserved to be treated as normal human beings.” I growled.
“So what, you were some modern day version of Robin Hood?” PD asked, poking his big head in on the conversation.
I nodded.
“That must be it,” I said through clenched teeth.
“So what is it that you’re doing with Mia? Do you like her?” Baylee asked.
I nodded. “I do.”
“And you want to be with her?” She continued.
I nodded again.
I seemed to be doing a lot of nodding.
Mia was making me into a simpering idiot, though.
I had done nothing but think about her for the last three months, and now here I was, falling head over fucking heels for her, and she may or may not even feel the same way.
“Then go for her. Put in the work. The pain is worth the gain and all that shit,” Baylee teased.
I snorted. “Thanks. I’ll have to remember that.”
The tones dropped, and we all halted in our conversations.
“Engine one, medic one,” the dispatcher said. “There is a structure fire at the Azalea Hills Trailer Park off…”
We all got moving.
I wasn’t a medic today, I was on the engine, so I walked to my bunker gear and slipped my feet into it easily…expertly.
I’d done it so many times that it was like second nature by now.
PD followed suit on one side of me and Bowe on the other.
“They better not burn my sauce,” Bowe grumbled.
I snorted. “They can cook better than I can. So you have a fifty-fifty chance of it being all right when you get back.”
Bowe shot me a glare.
“You better be right, or you won’t be getting any lasagna.”
“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” I said, then called louder to the ladies. “Y’all keep an eye on the sauce. Don’t let it burn.”
I got thumbs up.
Turns out it didn’t matter anyway.
When I got back, lasagna was the very last thing on my mind.
***
The next morning as I got off shift, I was still nauseated.
The fire we worked in the trailer park had spread from the original location, to about fifteen other trailers, wiping out nearly the whole freakin’ park.
I walked slowly to my truck, watching my feet the whole way.
Which was why I didn’t see Mia until I was standing directly in front of her.
“You okay?” She asked in a soft, honeyed voice.
My head snapped up, taking her in like a breath of fresh air in a room full of smoke.
I nodded, looking at her from head to toe.
“You were on the news last night…and the front page,” she said, holding out the morning’s newspaper to me.
I took it, scanning it.
Surprisingly, everything was correct.
I hadn’t realized any of the boys had talked to the paper, but after reading the article, someone clearly had.
The article was too informative.
But the more I read, the more I realized that none of the boys would’ve given this kind of information out.
“What the fuck?” I asked. “They gave the names of the victims?”
Mia’s eyes widened. “Were they not supposed to?”
I grabbed Mia’s hand and led her back into the building, my untied boots flapping as I hurried.
B Shift, which included Winter and Baylee, gave me a weird look as I came in. Their brows rose.
“What are you doing back?” Winter asked.
I didn’t answer, instead heading straight into Allen’s office.
“What’s up?” He asked, catching sight of Mia who was right behind me.
He stood and walked around the desk, gathering Mia up in a hug.
“How are you, girl?” He asked.
Mia smiled. “I’m doing okay. It’s getting better all the time.”
Allen patted her shoulder.
“Look at this,” I said, holding the paper out for Allen.
He took it and read it, eyebrows lowering the more he read.
“Who wrote this?” He asked as he flipped to the back of the paper to where it continued on the last page of the front section.
And that, my friends, was the million-dollar question.
Chapter 10
The sheet got hung on my bra strap, and for a magnificent moment, I was fucking Superwoman!
-Text from Masen to Mia
Mia
“Masen,” I said, turning to my very best friend in the whole wide world. “I will help you. Now sit down, pour us some wine, and stop whining. This’ll be fine.”
Masen glared.
“Make sure you specify in there that I’m a woman, not a man. I don’t want to pick up the wrong orientation. I’m desperate here. I could almost do that mail order bride thing,” Masen joked.
She looked almost out of place in my house. Her designer clothes looked so much more fashionable than mine. Even now that we were both making the same amount.