Page 115 of Honeymoon Phase
I swallow down the painful knot in my throat and when Jo releases me, she doesn’t fully let go. She keeps rubbing my back and holding on to my arm, gazing at the engraved board with me. And I realize for once I’m not pulling away from her one bit. I’m leaning in and accepting it with everything I have in me.
Through watery eyes, I look at the ladies all standing around the table and offering me silent looks of support. “I’m glad you gals are going to be standing up there with me on Saturday because I’m going to be a mess, I fear,” I say with a garbled laugh. “But girlfriends sure do make it all a lot less scary.”
“We got you,” Trista says, reaching out to hold my hand.
“The ladies of Fletcher Mountain are always here for you,” Dakota adds with a smile.
Cozy lets out an angry growl. “Okay, we’re seriously building a cabin up there. I can’t take this shit anymore. Jo, we’ll add a mother-in-law suite on our house.”
“No Fletcher woman left behind,” Everly adds with twinkling eyes.
Jo laughs and hugs me one more time and I grin over the fact that I too am in the Fletcher women club, and I don’t think I ever want to leave.
Addison Monroe Fletcher.
Has a pretty good ring to it, I think.
Chapter 37
Fact or Fiction?
A moving target is harder to hit.
Luke
When I pull up to John Monroe’s property and get out of my truck, I duck behind my door when I hear a loud bang off in the distance. My eyes swerve around, trying to find the source of what sounds like gunshots, but when another bang sounds off, I realize it’s coming from behind the house.
At least those shots aren’t being fired at me... yet.
Wrapping my coat up tight around me, I crunch through the thick snow as I walk around back and spot John off in the distance. He’s standing at a table with a long rifle propped on a bipod stand, which he’s apparently using to shoot down a row of beer cans on a ledge that runs along the border of his wooded property.
He’s clearly in the middle of target practice, which makes me feel a bit like I couldn’t have picked a worse time to drop by unannounced.
But I’m here for my wife. The love of my life. And I’m not going to let her big bear of a father scare me away no matter how much ammunition he has. We must have the same end goal in sight. We want his daughter happy. And I feel well-informed on what will make her happy these days.
I pause as I watch him knock down another can, my nerves dancing in my belly with the loud boom. My dad was never a big hunter, so it wasn’t something we all engaged in growing up. And even living in the rural mountains all these years, with thehope of being as sustainable as possible up on our peak, none of us has ever taken to hunting. We each have some protection rifles that rarely see the light of day, but for the most part, we are not killers. We respect it for the necessity of feeding a family and I can appreciate the sustainability of it, but to be the one to do the work to kill it... not for me. What can I say? I’m a lover not a fighter.
Something tells me John is a fighter.
“Mr. Monroe,” I call out and step behind a tree in case he perceives me as a threat and aims his weapon right at me.
John removes his noise-canceling earmuffs and turns around, his brows furrowed as he squints in my direction. I offer a timid wave as I force myself to come out from behind the tree like a big boy.
“What the hell are you doing here?” John barks, turning to dismount his rifle from the holder.
I make my way over and see that he’s removing the shells from the chamber.
That’s a good start, I guess.
“I was hoping I could talk to you for a moment.” I grip the back of my neck as I stand beside him at the table, squinting at the mangled beer cans off in the distance. Most people would probably be using a target to shoot on. Not John.
“Is now a good time?”
“Now is a great time!” John grips his gun and props it upward on the table, posing like he’s ready for me to take his photo. All he needs is a dead animal carcass in his free hand to really complete the scene.
I pause, wondering if it’s me he’s picturing in the photo with him, playing the part of a carcass, and as if he can read my thoughts, he sighs heavily and lays the rifle back down.
“What can I do for you?” he asks with a deep, throaty voice.
