Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 84(@200wpm)___ 67(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 84(@200wpm)___ 67(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
When the plane taxied over to the dock, I saw Jolly’s longer hair through the window.
Oh well.
Maybe it was a good thing it wasn’t Pete. I’d probably embarrass myself by asking him nosy questions about Sutton and their marriage.
Just thinking about Pete married to someone else made my stomach lurch. When Jolly got out of the plane to help me into the co-pilot’s seat, I wondered if I was going to finally feel sick enough on a Knockwood flight to need a barf bag.
Thankfully, the deafening buzz of the engine was excuse enough to keep to myself on the short flight back. When we landed and approached the dock, I noticed Pete unloading boxes from another plane further down the dock, closer to Ryan’s outfitting store.
He looked up and met my eye before turning back to his task as if I was any other tourist returning from an expedition on his family’s air taxi service.
My stomach twisted even more. What the fuck was I doing? Didn’t I know better than to fall for someone impossible? And how fair was it for me to expect something of him he obviously didn’t want to give?
I wanted him to want me the same way I wanted him, but now I could see why he wouldn’t want anything serious with an outsider.
Sutton had shown up from Atlanta once upon a time, and it hadn’t worked out between them. Why in the world would it be different with me?
Even if I was willing to risk everything to try and make it work with Pete… what was to say we wouldn’t end up the same way?
Heartbroken and bitter. And so very much alone.
I’d come to Alaska in search of adventure and new experiences, but I’d ended up with the same old case of disappointment I was too familiar with.
Only this time it was worse, because this time I was really in love, and the heartbreak was real.
If there was one silver lining in my disappointment, it was that I finally knew what I wanted to write my article about.
I raced back to my room and put on my noise-canceling headphones before hitting Play on Spotify’s Heartbreak Hits playlist.
Peter Valentine may not have been my future, but he was definitely part of my present, and I was going to use my feelings for him to live my best life with or without him.
CHAPTER 8
PETE
I knew he was in there, but he wasn’t answering the door or my increasingly insistent texts.
After returning downstairs, I leaned over the bar and reached for the giant ring of keys clipped to Boston’s belt. He quickly moved his hip out of reach.
“Hey, hands off the merchandise, buddy,” he grumbled.
“I need your master key.”
“For what?” He eyed me suspiciously. “If it’s for what I think, you’re smoking crack.”
I made a swipe at his keyring again, but he hopped away. “Give it. I’m being serious,” I warned. “Jonah isn’t answering the door or his phone and I know he’s in there.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want his stalker getting access to his room,” Boston said. “Ever think of that?”
“I’m hardly his stalker, and you know it.”
Maggie set a tray of dirty glasses on the bar next to me. “You sure? Jolly said the guy called you his stalker.”
If she hadn’t been grinning like a fool, I might have thought she was serious. “I’m not his stalker,” I repeated. “And I’m worried about him. What if something happened and he’s unconscious?”
“He’s not unconscious,” Maggie said. “He ordered a grilled chicken salad delivered to his room an hour ago. When I took it to him, he said the words were finally flowing for his article. He’s just trying to work, Pete. Give the guy a break.”
I opened my mouth to remind her it was his last night in town. Wouldn’t he… wouldn’t he want to spend it with me? Or at least…
I pressed my back teeth together. Maybe he didn’t want to spend it with me. Maybe he really needed to get this article done before getting back to the office. It was the whole reason for his trip, after all.
Maybe he was disappointed that I hadn’t had tried harder to get home from my run to Anchorage in time to take him to the kennel, or that I hadn’t taken the opportunity to hug and kiss the shit out of him on the dock earlier. Maybe he’d figured out that I was desperate to stop my brothers from realizing that I was making the same stupid mistake a second time—falling for an outsider I barely knew.
Maybe he’d figured out that I was a chickenshit who obviously couldn’t get my head on straight because now I was acting like a lovelorn fool pining for a man I’d seen only a matter of hours ago. To hell with what my brothers thought.