Page 20 of Cold Foot Curse

“Can I roll down the window too?” she asked.

“You can do whatever you want. No one can tell you what to do anymore, Jess.”

She rolled down the window and rested her elbow against the frame, spreading her fingers wide to feel the wind. Her hair was whipping everywhere, so she pulled up her hoodie to keep it tucked back and relaxed into the seat and stretched her arm out again to the sound of the music.

Kade leaned over her, startling her, but opened the handle of the glove box, and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. Then he handed them to her.

They were a pair of men’s Oakley’s, and too big for her face, but she liked them. She turned and showed him. An accidental grin stretched her lips. She must’ve looked so silly right now.

“Perfect,” he said with a chuckle.

The smile faded from her face as she saw his smile. What a smile that man had. She didn’t remember it from before. He’d always been so serious back then, but now, he was an easy smiler. She could tell. He was healing polar bear claw marks, and had taken time out of his life to come pick her up, and this couldn’t be easy on him. She was a bag of memories he was choosing to carry on his back. Some might be good memories, but she would bet many were bad.

And yet still…here he was with a smile plastered across his face. A genuine one.

Had her smile ever been as easy as Kade’s? She couldn’t recall.

How had he gotten here? Cold Foot Prison couldn’t have been easy.

“What was it like?” she asked.

“What?” he asked.

“The trial and stuff? I didn’t go. No one was allowed to except for the ones involved or who were testifying.”

He scrunched up his face. “Let’s talk about that tank top instead. Was that what you were wearing to go out with Connor?”

She tried to hide her smile. “Too modest?”

He gave a dark laugh. “You need to be wearing a potato sack around that one.”

“Maybe this is what I wear now. Maybe I’m scandalous.”

He snorted. “I wouldn’t call that shirt scandalous. The females in my crew wear freaking next-to-nothing right now.”

“It’s hot where you’re from?”

“It’s warm. They all run hot.”

“Are they all…you know?”

“No, what?”

“Are they all pretty? Are any of them into you?” She shoved her hands into her hoodie pockets and said, “You know what? Never mind. It feels so weird right now to try for normal conversation when my house is probably a pile of rubble back there. The house fell.”

“That’s not your fault or mine. Connor broke the door and hurt you. The rhino reacted. He was the one who pulled the fight into the house. That’s on him.”

“They’ll blame it all on me,” she said low.

“Nah. They’ll blame me, and you know what? That’s okay. I could level every house in the Crew, and it still wouldn’t make up for what they did to my life.”

Huh. Okay, that actually made her feel better about the house.

“Derek makes all the Crew houses take on shifter destruction insurance,” she told him, reaching for a bright side.

“Well, there you go. It’ll be rebuilt in no time.”

“Is Connor really alive?” she asked suddenly.

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