Page 133 of Boston
She nodded, and then tipped up and whispered, “I think so too,” just before she kissed him again.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
Cash left the pharmacy with three new prescriptions and zero patience. He hated being sick on the best of days, and with the weather being as gorgeous as it was, and his move-in date to Jet McClellan’s parents’ house that day, he certainly didn’t have time to deal with a head cold or a sore throat or a cough or any of the things that had been plaguing him since last week.
“Bronchitis,” he scoffed out.
Despite that, he and Boston had managed to have a spectacular send-off for Beth on Sunday at the vacation rental, and Cash had slept for fifteen hours afterward before finally admitting defeat and heading to the Insta-Care.
He’d only packed one bag to take with him up to Dog Valley, because he could go back to the vacation rental and get cleaned up and get the rest of his stuff anytime in the next nine days. He simply wanted to do it all in one day and not have to go back and forth.
“But it’s not like you have other things to do,” he muttered to himself, because he really didn’t. He didn’t want to go back to the house tonight, though, because Boston had planned a romantic dinner for him and Cora.
They’d made up in the mountains, and Boston had said he’d spoken with her, and she didn’t have to live on-site at Silver Sage. In fact, she’d told him that she’d prefer to live off-site, so she could separate herself and have a home life and a work life the way regular people did.
Cash wondered if she could really do that, but she wasn’t his girlfriend, and he just wanted his cousin to be happy. Boston had signed the paperwork for The Seventy-Seven and then immediately demanded that Cash start thinking of another name.
Right now, all he could focus on was driving, as the Apple Highway curved through forests and orchards, and the last thing he needed on top of being sick was a busted-up truck. A round of coughing shook his shoulders, and the moment he could, Cash pulled into a gas station and ran inside to get something to eat and a sports drink.
Back in his truck, he fumbled to open the prescriptions, ripping right through the instructions. One of these he wasn’t supposed to take and operate heavy machinery, and he told himself that he would be at the house in another five minutes, and it would take two minutes to walk in and collapse into the bed if that was what he had to do.
He hoped not. He wanted to explore the property and check out the different rooms. He wanted to see if he needed to do any yard work, and Jet had texted to say that his mom had turned off the air conditioner completely.
The enormity of tasks in front of Cash felt monumental, and he hated this part of himself that got worked up over simple things like turning on a thermostat and observing the length of the lawn.
He read the directions on the pill bottle for the cough medicine, and he threw back two pills and then one for thecongestion. He hadn’t been able to sleep well before last night’s dead zone, and he already felt ready for another nap.
“Ten minutes,” he muttered to himself, and he got back on the road and navigated to the address his friend had given him.
He had a code for the garage so he could pull in, so he got out, tapped that in, and waited for the brown door to rumble up. Thankfully, this was an extra-long and extra-wide garage, and his truck fit inside.
He got out and grabbed his overnight bag from the back seat, and then went up the few steps and into the house, tapping the button to close the garage door as he went.
The front lawn had looked plenty short, and Cash took a moment on the cusp of the luxury kitchen in which he found himself standing. “Wow, this is a nice house.”
The air had definitely been turned off, and though Jet’s mother had just left on Saturday, the house held a staleness that made Cash’s lungs squeeze. Or maybe that was the bronchitis.
He moved, taking his bag with him as he walked through the kitchen, drinking in the high-end finishes of hardwood floors and quartz countertops.
He found the thermostat only a foot down the hallway, and he pushed theCOOLbutton to turn it on. Something clicked and then hummed, and Cash turned toward the front door. He stepped that way, where he found a formal living room with a piano, a love seat, and a desk in it.
Jet said his dad worked for Springside Energy, and Cash knew that Graham Whitaker owned that company. They seemed to have plenty of money, and so did the McClellans.
Cash whistled appreciatively as he walked back into the living room and saw the gorgeous view through the back windows. The back of the house faced west, and above the pines in the backyard, the Tetons rose in all their glory. His braindidn’t feel too fuzzy yet, so Cash flicked the lock on the sliding glass door and stepped outside.
The morning sun currently heated the other side of the house, leaving the backyard in coolness and shade. An expansive deck extended from the back of the house, and Cash grinned at the built-in hot tub only three steps to his left.
“I am the luckiest man in the world,” he said.
“Or the deadest.”
Cash sucked in a breath and jumped away from the female voice that had come from behind him.
Inside the house.
His nerves scampered through his body, making it hard for his mind to seize onto what was happening.
