Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 97409 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97409 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
We left the house at exactly seven this morning. I had gotten two and a half hours of sleep, and as soon as we got in the truck and started on our way, I quickly dozed off, sleeping for most of the drive until we stopped to eat at a diner off the highway. Now we have just thirty minutes to go before we get to his house.
I put my head back on the headrest. “Yeah, I’m just nervous. I’ve never been taken home to meet the parents before.” I put my hand on my stomach. I’ve been doing this a lot these days. “Especially with this situation.” I stare at his profile, thinking he really is the perfect specimen of a man. I’m pretty sure they broke the mold after they made him.
“Collins.” Every time he says my name, I get flutters. “I know everyone thinks they have the best family”—not everyone, I want to correct him, but don’t—“but I really do think my family is the best.”
“Really?” I smile at him. “Tell me why.”
“So my parents,” he begins, glancing at me, “they met in the most unconventional way you could ever imagine two people meeting.”
“More unconventional than how we got together?”
“Yeah. See, my mother was married before my father.” I turn to face him. “To a guy called Eric. They had two kids, my older sisters, Lizzie and Daisy. And then he died in a car accident. After he was gone, she found out he was living a double life.”
The gasp that escapes me fills the cab and makes him laugh. “Shut the front door.” I put my hand on his arm, feeling the silkiness of his skin. “Oh my gosh.”
“He had another wife—well, not actually, since he married my mother first, but my aunt Hailey thought they were married.”
“Your aunt?” I hold up my hand in a circle, making him laugh. “This is some soap opera story.” I push him now, not believing him.
“It really was. When my mother wanted to ask questions about everything, she reached out to Hailey’s brother, and they fell in love. They got married and had my brother and me.” My mouth opens in shock.
“So your mother married her dead husband’s fake wife’s brother?”
He throws his head back and barks out a laugh. “It’s a mouthful when you say it like that. I guess that’s how you put it. You know Sierra’s boyfriend, Caleb? He’s the son Hailey had with my uncle Jensen, so he’s my cousin on my dad’s side.”
“Wow, lucky, I guess, for your aunt Hailey that she didn’t have a baby with him. That would have really spun a wild web.” I look out at the road. “That’s an incredible story. How did your grandparents take it? Did they want to kill Eric again?”
“My mother didn’t know who her parents were.” I squeeze his arm. “Her mother died from a drug overdose not long after she was born.”
My hand goes to my mouth. “She really overcame everything.”
“Pretty much,” he agrees. “She had some drama with Lizzie and Daisy’s grandparents, but then she had my dad in her corner. Married him and had my older brother, Carter, and then me.”
“So you’re the baby?” I rub his arm with my thumb. “What does she do?”
“She’s a social worker.”
“Did she always want to do that?” He nods his head. “I always wanted to be a nurse. But I couldn’t afford school, so I settled for the next best thing . . .” I trail off, wanting to change the subject. “Am I the first girl you’ve ever brought home?”
“No . . .” He takes a second before he says, “I was engaged.” The words hit me like a freight train crashing into a brick wall. “Two days before the wedding, she called it off.”
“What?” I’m shocked that anyone who actually knows him would give him up.
“Everything was booked,” his voice is low, “and two days before the wedding, she was waiting for me at home, sitting on the couch.” My hand falls off his arm. “Tears were running down her face. She told me she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t see herself spending the rest of her life with me, so why go through with it? She called her parents, I called mine, and we called off the wedding.”
“Do you think she was right?” My mouth is dry, so I reach over and grab the bottle of water he got for me when he stopped for gas and I was sleeping.
“They say everything happens for a reason.” His closest hand grabs mine. “I see that now.”
“Do you still . . .” My throat feels like it’s going to close up. “. . . love her?”
“Absolutely not,” he declares quickly.
“Are you saying that because of your ego or because it’s the truth?”
“If you had asked me this a year ago, when it happened, I would have said it was my ego, but now it’s the truth.”