Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
I felt a shiver much like the one I’d felt when he’d rubbed his whiskers on my cheek the night before, just as pleasant and promising, but not as strong.
I turned to him.
“Uh…” I didn’t quite begin, so stunned was I at my current location.
“Kimmy’s a nut. She knows who killed Kennedy, she thinks, and she’ll tell anyone in her vicinity. Not anyone who asks, mind. Anyone in her vicinity. She also knows where Hoffa is buried, and who put him there. And she’s got some wild-ass theory about the link between Roswell and the Bermuda Triangle that you don’t want to hear. In short, Nadia, she’s good people, a good mom, a good grandma, but she’s still halfway around the bend, and she gets off on taking people there with her.”
“The first night at the cabin, there was scratching at the window.”
I watched in fascinated horror as Riggs’s long body went completely still.
I didn’t have time for him to go still, mostly because it freaked me out.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this last night?” I asked.
He came unstuck and answered, “Because I don’t believe the stories, seeing as there’s no such thing as ghosts. And no, before you ask, I wasn’t ever going to tell you, not only because I think it’s shit, because I know it is. The whole lake was supposed to be haunted, but I’ve lived here for a while, and nothing. Are you sure you heard scratching on your window?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It might have been a tree. But I checked, and that doesn’t seem possible. But I’ve lived my whole life in lakefront properties, that lake being Lake Michigan, and those properties being in Chicago proper. Thus, I don’t know nature living.”
He put his hands to my arms again, but this time to rub them soothingly.
And one could say, Riggs’s sweet touch could sooth.
It also did other things. I just ignored those things.
“I’ll have a look,” he promised. “But it was probably nothing, Nadia, because, again, ghosts don’t exist. Kimmy’s harmless and mostly hilarious, unless you’re not in the state of mind to hear her stories. And the reason I didn’t tell you and didn’t want you to know, full stop, is that I figured you aren’t in the right frame of mind.”
He wasn’t wrong about that.
And it was kind, how he didn’t share because he was looking out for me.
I didn’t tell him how I’d foolishly moved to what appeared to be a serial killer and scorned woman mecca before I knew it was either.
Instead, I shifted our conversation to something else that was pressing.
“Ledger?”
He smiled. It was bold and white and proud and gorgeous.
“Yeah,” he said, dropping his hands from my arms and taking a step back. “I didn’t get around to that last night either. But I bought two of those bottles from my bud, so I meant to, eventually.”
“He’s a mini Riggs.”
The smile got bolder and prouder. “He is.”
“How old is he?”
“Nine.”
“Ledger is a cool name,” I told him.
“Agreed,” he replied, but said no more, and I didn’t get the chance to ask him why we were chatting in his bedroom and not out by my car, because we were joined by the person we were talking about.
He was holding out his dad’s phone. “Dad, your phone was ringing. The screen said it’s Lucille.”
“Thanks, buddy,” Riggs murmured, and with a dip of his chin to me, he stepped to a window moving his thumbs over the screen, and then he put it to his ear and his eyes to the view.
Ledger looked to me. “You fish?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Kayak?”
More shaking of my head. “No.”
“Run trails?”
“Only when chased by a ghost.”
The kid cracked a smile.
We both whirled to Riggs with the way he whispered, “Fuck.”
“Is everything okay?” I asked a question I knew was stupid considering the look on his face.
“I need to ask a favor,” he replied urgently.
The urgency got me, and I said softly, “Anything.”
“I’m gonna call Ledger’s gramme and ask her to come look after him. But she probably won’t be able to get here for at least half an hour. I know you two just met.” He glanced at Ledger. “Sorry, buddy.” He came back to me. “But can you look after him until she gets here? I gotta get to the hospital.”
“Why?” Ledger asked, a little-kid thread of alarm snaking through that syllable, and my heart lurched at hearing it.
“Something’s happened to Uncle Bubs,” Riggs told him.
Ledger went pale, so obviously “Uncle Bubs” meant something to him, and he definitely meant something to Riggs.
Riggs approached his son and wrapped his fingers around his boy’s shoulder. “I don’t know what’s happening. But I gotta go. I’ll let you know what I know as soon as I find out.”
“’Kay, Dad.”
Riggs looked to me.
“We’re good. Go,” I urged.