Page 26 of Echo
“Whoops.” I rolled my eyes.
“Tell me where you are. I’ll deal with him for you.”There was a dark promise that made me want to smile, but I knew better than to give him any foothold. We’d be right back to our old ways before the plane even landed.“I’ve got to get him six feet under, anyway.”
“No,” I whispered.
He chuckled.“You gonna make me hunt you down?”
“No,” I repeated.
“You know I’m not a fan of that word.”
I chuckled. If I’d have told Aurelio no to sex, he would have given me that panty melting smile and taken it as a challenge to prove himself.
“But I’ll let it go, because it’s you.”
“Thank you.”
“Let me see what I get on this. Hang tight.”
“Of course.”
I hung up before I said or did something I’d regret and deleted my call history. With another breath, I stood and turned to face the door, mentally preparing myself to pretend I hadn’t half lost my mind in those woods.
And I never even found those fucking bees.
My eyes landed on the bright, freshly painted white door. My breath caught in my throat again and all my thoughts stopped in their tracks.
I’d painted it black the day before.
I looked at my elbow where a patch of paint hadn’t come off in the shower. The paint on my skin was definitely black.
How the fuck was it white again?
Chapter 9:
Istilldidn’tgointo my house. Instead, I painted the door black, again. I didn’t let my mind fixate on the fact it changed colors, and kept my focus on fixing the issue. Otherwise, I’d lose my shit over it.
I also found some flower pots and decorated the porch with some flowers I found that Pearl never transplanted to the ground. The bright red pops of color did a lot to spruce up the barren porch. While that wasn’t what was important, it was what I needed to keep my head on straight.
As I finished arranging them, a beat up truck came down the road. I frowned and found they weren’t slowing down. They honked and waved, driving off the driveway, into the grass, and past the side of the house to the barn.
“What the hell?”
Ranger’s head tilted to the side as if to express that he was as lost as I was. I went around the other way, following the black stone path, until I made it to the barn where the truck backed into the opening and was throwing giant bags of feed where they went.
“Um, Sir?” I waved.
The guy whipped his head up and stared at me wide-eyed as if I startled him. He froze like he couldn’t decide if I was real or not. His eyes roved over me shamelessly, as if he’d never seen a woman like me before.
“You have got to be the most gorgeous creature I have ever seen in these mountains before.”
My face warmed up at the blunt words, and his head shook back and forth. His blue eyes widened impossibly further as if he was mortified that he’d said it out loud.
“I don’t know whether to be appalled or flattered,” I sputtered.
Then again, he was gorgeous himself. He wore a backwards ball cap and a friendly face. My eyes followed the line of well defined muscles barely hidden under a dirty, white tank-top. Following all the way down to powerful thighs, covered by jeans.
“I’m sorry.” He closed his eyes, and I could practically hear him mentally berating himself. “How can I help you?”
