Home > Kane( Arizona Vengeance #8)(3)

Kane( Arizona Vengeance #8)(3)
Author: Sawyer Bennett

It’s Mollie I’m concerned about, and my gaze moves to her. She’s on her side, legs tucked in, her head resting on a pillow and her arm curled around another in a spooning position.

I’m not going to lie… I’m worried about her. After she arrived at my apartment yesterday morning, I fed her breakfast, then she tumbled into bed and went to sleep. I woke her up once around noon to see if she needed anything, and her only request was that I take Samson out for a walk so he could go to the bathroom. I’d rummaged through one of her bags to find the leash, then took him on a nice walk around downtown Phoenix. I can say without a doubt that I did not enjoy picking up his shit.

Later that evening, Mollie stumbled out of her room for dinner. We made small talk, but I could tell there was something deep within her that required much more than mumbled, tired words over a meal. She looked exhausted. And after she ate, she went back to her room and slept all through the night. I took care of Samson for her by feeding him, making sure he could get into the room so he could sleep with her, then I listened for a scratch on the door should he need to go out to potty.

Now it’s the next day and close to noon again, and I don’t know what to do.

Is she sick? Is she here because she’s dying? It sounds like a made-for-TV movie, and I’m sure as fuck not ready to star in that role.

Not that I wouldn’t take care of Mollie if something were wrong with her. I would do anything for this woman. I’m just not ready to even consider losing her.

But it can’t be that. Mollie is too full of life, and there is no way she’s sick and dying. It’s stupid for me even to let my thoughts go there. I mean, this woman has traveled alone around the world in nothing but a tricked-out van with her trusty dog by her side. It is something I couldn’t have done myself. I don’t have the brains to plan out such an adventure, nor do I have the fortitude to live so meagerly for such a long time.

Backing out of Mollie’s room, I decide to let her sleep for a while longer. I head into my living room, pulling up my Instagram and navigating over to her account. She calls herself The Travel Hag, which is hilarious to me because she is about as far from a hag as you can get. Mollie says she came up with that name because she lives so frugally. She doesn’t wear makeup, cuts her own hair, and shops in thrift stores for her clothing. She doesn’t use expensive beauty products, either. If she’s not bathing in cold mountain streams, she’s taking quick showers at campgrounds. She doesn’t even own a hairdryer, preferring to let her long locks dry naturally come winter or summer.

She once told me her only real luxury is buying expensive women’s razors because while she’s a wanderer, she doesn’t believe in hairy legs and pits.

I flip through the IG photos she copies over from her website blog. She does lengthy written articles on her website, but her Instagram pages are filled with the most amazing and beautiful photos imaginable. She’s not only a fantastic wordsmith, but Mollie knows how to capture the perfect photograph just with the use of her iPhone.

I smile as I flip through them. I’ve seen them all before, and I’m sure I’ll look at them again after today. Many of the photos are just scenery—wondrous mountain ranges, stunning beaches, or fields filled with wildflowers. Some she takes using the timer so she’s in the picture with the view behind her. She loves to practice yoga, and often posts photos of herself in various positions with the gorgeous landscape behind her. While I try not to think of Mollie in a certain way, I cannot deny she has a fantastic body. Lithe but curvy in all the right places. Her muscles are toned and sleek. Her skin is golden-hued, her caramel-colored hair streaked from the sun. Many of her photos have Samson and her together, and it’s easy to see deep within their eyes they have an unbreakable bond. She adopted him from the shelter six years ago when she started traveling.

And many of her blog articles and photos are focused on how to travel on a budget. Mollie’s most significant expenditure—an investment made by her parents—was a customized van that has everything she could need. Storage for food items and clothing, a bed that converts out of the way into a small kitchen, and she even outfitted the vehicle with solar panels to provide for her electricity.

Mollie Callister is a one-of-a-kind woman.

Tossing the phone on the couch beside me, I kick my feet up on the coffee table and reminisce how this friendship started. Ten years ago, when we were both eighteen and freshmen at Boston College, I saw her walking across the quad while I strutted along with my new hockey teammates since I had been recruited to play there. And I thought she was the most beautiful thing in the entire world. I approached her with the sole intention of getting a date, but what I found instead was a girl completely lost and struggling to fit in.

I suppose people would say it was fated, but it turns out Mollie and I were both from Southern California and grew up in towns about an hour apart from each other. It was that shared background of growing up on the beaches of SoCal that helped build the bond of a strong friendship. And while I quickly determined that even though I was crazily attracted to her, Mollie needed a friend more than anything. For some reason, I was happy to provide it.

From that first week of school, we became close friends. We only had one class together that first year—English—but we spent a lot of our downtime studying together in the library. My time was more limited than hers because I had practice, and the hockey season went from October to March of the school year. But whenever there was an opportunity, we hung out. Mollie came to all the home games to cheer me on. She became an honorary member of the hockey team because she was always with me. We confided in each other, and we could spend hours just talking.

She became “Noodle” to me, a nickname I bestowed upon her when she got very drunk one night at a party. I’d had to carry her three blocks back to her dorm while she was limp as a noodle, passed out in my arms. Of course, this was after I found some guy trying to take advantage of her drunken state at a frat party. I had to first beat the shit out of him before I could take her back to her dorm and tuck her in for the night. I’d sat in a chair by her bed until the next morning to make sure she didn’t need to throw up.

Our freshman year of college is where the foundation of friendship was laid. That summer, in between our freshman and sophomore years, was when we became best friends.

After nine months of living the college life together in Boston, we’d both returned to our Southern California towns and spent more time together than we ever had. While we both had summer jobs, we spent our weekends on the beach hanging out with mutual friends and partying.

The next three years at Boston College were a blur. I played hockey, and they were some of the best times of my life. It ultimately led me to the professional league. Mollie and I both dated—we just never dated each other. We were best friends, and that’s the way it stayed. Our summers were spent on the beaches and having dinners in each other’s homes. Her parents became my parents, and mine became hers. Everyone in our families always marveled that a boy and a girl could stay only friends, yet we did it. Everyone said we should always be more, but we ignored them.

Not that we didn’t try… once.

In her sophomore year, Mollie’s boyfriend broke up with her and left her heart shattered into a million pieces. We hung out in my dorm room that night, sharing a bottle of vodka. We both got very drunk. She kissed me, then asked me if it was a bad kiss.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)