Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Whoever had driven up had stopped me because I had been seconds away from shoving her against the wall and demanding she tell me how the girl’s phone I’d gone through last night and the one blackmailing her father was the same person.
Had her mother’s death made her that angry? Or was it that she really just needed some financial help and Baskin had been a dick about it?
The text threads she had with a Peg and a Melody sounded like she hadn’t had anywhere to live. They’d both been helping her and told her she didn’t have to ask the bastard for help.
That was something I did have that I could give to Linc—the first names of the people who knew about Baskin being her father. The thread with Melody sounded as if she had been sleeping on Melody’s sofa since selling her mom’s house. I just didn’t have their last names, but that should be easy enough to find out.
But when I’d put her phone back beside her bed last night, I hadn’t texted Linc the names. The fear that he’d use them to force her out was holding me back. The text I’d read sounded like she really had nowhere to go but the Melody woman’s sofa. And since both Melody and Peg had called Baskin a bastard and mentioned they wished her momma had made him pay child support all those years, my guess was that Baskin hadn’t helped financially. I felt myself leaning toward her side on this. Baskin was a dick. I knew the family kept his name clean and he, in return, did favors for us. But, damn, this was a hard one for me. Montana was his biological daughter. Her mom was dead.
“Figured you’d be out here when you weren’t at the cabin.”
Gathe’s voice had me jerking my head back around and off Montana’s exceptional ass.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
I had been hoping Gathe wouldn’t get a look at her.
“Had to let Diane out,” I replied, stepping outside to meet him.
Maybe I could keep him from going in there. If he did, he’d never leave.
“You done?” he asked. “Kickoff is in twenty-minutes.”
I shook my head. “No. I’ve got things to do out here, and I’m tired of sitting in that damn cabin. Aren’t they watching it at the house?”
“Yeah, but being the good friend that I am, I’m sacrificing for you,” he said, then walked right past me and strode into the barn before I could stop him.
The moment he stepped inside, his steps faltered.
“Holy fuck,” he whispered, then glanced at me before looking back at her. “You’re a stingy, lying bastard—you know that?” he told me, still talking low enough so that only I could hear.
I started to remind him that she was a threat, but he moved too quickly. His long strides were headed right for her, and Montana looked up and noticed him, then stood. Her eyes shifted from me to him. I dropped my gaze to her tits and was relieved to see the nipples were no longer standing at attention. It was bad enough that you could see the outline of them in the shirt.
“Gathe,” I warned, but he didn’t even slow down.
“You must be Montana,” he drawled and did that thing where he ran his hand through his blond hair, making it even messier than it was.
I rolled my eyes. He stopped when he reached her and held out his hand. What the fuck?
“I’m Gathe Bowen. A friend of Than’s.”
Montana’s gaze flickered to me, and she looked uncertain. When she didn’t move to shake his hand, I realized she was waiting on me to tell her this was okay. I sighed. I wished she wouldn’t do that. It made me…dislike her less.
“It’s fine,” I told her. “He knows who you are.”
Her gaze shifted back to Gathe, and she still looked nervous, but she slipped her hand into his. He didn’t shake it but lifted it to his lips and kissed the back of it.
Are you fucking kidding me? Jesus.
The small smile that started to tug at the corners of her lips was accompanied by those green eyes lighting up with amusement.
“You’ve got the perfect nose,” he told her, holding her hand and leaning closer to look at it. “I think I just fell in love with those freckles.”
“Gathe,” I snarled.
He didn’t reply right away, but held her gaze a moment longer before turning his head slightly to cut his eyes at me.
“Problem?” he asked innocently.
“She’s not a hookup at a bar. Drop the Casanova bit,” I replied, disgusted.
He gave her his full attention again, but her eyes were darting back and forth between the two of us.
“No, she’s not,” he agreed while looking at her. “You know, green eyes and dark hair are my favorite combination.”