Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Still, I love watching him try. Because Chris at the stove—barefoot, shirtless, his blond hair still a mess from last night’s sleep—always gets my blood pumping and my thighs scorching.
Now he’s got a kitchen full of smoke and a daughter screaming on the porch while his wife drinks cold coffee on the couch.
“Daddy! Daddy, I’m a crow!”
He leans back from the stove and looks out the window. “Rosie, come on. Get off the railing, you’ll fall and hurt yourself.”
“No, I won’t! I can fly!”
“Sweetie?” He glances at me, giving me a look that I understand. I get up from the couch, go out front, and scoop our daughter up into my arms. She giggles, spreading her arms wide like wings as I cover her with kisses and carry her inside.
Rosie is as stubborn as I am. I set her down, and she hops around for a moment, then bolts back out the door and into the front yard. I sigh, and we both laugh.
It still gets me. His softness. It wasn’t there five years ago. When he looks at Rosie—his ice-blue eyes tracking our wonderful little girl as she sprints across the yard with her arms out—I melt.
The man who once told me he never let anyone in now has a daughter who he watches like she’s the center of the universe.
Because she is. She and I both are.
Chris decided to name her Rosie, after my middle name which I whispered to him back when he laid out this life to me and I wasn’t yet ready to say yes.
But now I’m here with both of them. A family, living a dream I once didn’t believe possible.
The house is everything he promised and more. White clapboards, a green roof, and a porch that wraps around two sides. It’s perched above the southern Oregon coast.
When we first found it, it was a wreck, falling apart. Warped floors, a gutted kitchen, and plumbing that groaned like an old cow. But Chris smiled and told me, “It’s perfect.” And I trusted him.
He fixed up every inch of it with his own two hands—hands that used to crack vaults and now build bookshelves and cabinets, hang pictures of our family, and lift our daughter up onto his shoulders when she’s too sleepy to walk anymore.
I’ve got a photography studio in town with my name on the door. I shoot portraits mostly but landscapes in my free time. Editorial work for magazines and websites.
Last month I had my first gallery show. I was so nervous. Chris stood in the back wearing a button-down shirt, trying not to look too proud but failing spectacularly.
Jules flew up from San Diego and cried all over my shoulder. Then she had too much red wine and went around telling everyone in attendance that she had discovered me and was my manager.
She cracks me up.
She’s here for the weekend, sleeping in the guest room. Her stuff is everywhere, like there was a bomb in her suitcase. She got in last night and hugged Chris at the door.
It still makes me smile. She was so skeptical when she first saw him, and now she’s Rosie’s godmother. She calls every Sunday and visits whenever she can.
Ironically, Chris runs a security firm now. The man who told me on day one that he was a security consultant but was really a bank robber now installs security systems for a living.
Eventually, he told me about his crew. About Danny, who managed to buy a house in La Jolla with his wife. They have a son now, named after Chris.
Marco retired and helped his wife open a bakery in North Park. Every December, they send us a card along with some of the most delicious Christmas cupcakes.
I go over to Chris and crack a few more eggs into a bowl, then turn the heat down on the stove. “Too hot, baby,” I tease, running my fingers over his abs.
“Yeah, you are,” he growls.
“Just bring it down a little, add a bit of oil and butter, and stir.”
Doing things for him makes me feel proud as a wife. He gave me this life, this house. I gave him Rosie and will continue to give him anything else he wants or needs for the rest of our lives.
We eat together, sitting beside each other at the table, not across, watching Rosie out the window as she hunts for feathers. He holds my thigh with his hand, and I marvel up at him.
“When Jules takes Rosie to get ice cream, can you and I have some fun?”
Chris’s lips curl upward, and he pulls me closer. “You can bet on it.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to believe all of this is actually real.”
He smiles. He knows exactly what I mean but chooses to tease me. “Baby, your eggs are unreal.”
Laughing, I smack him playfully on the shoulder. We finish up, I bring the plates to the sink, and we wash up together.