Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Darting into the bathroom, I grabbed two hand towels, one for Sam and one for the bloody guy on the floor. I knew my daughter hadn’t wanted to ruin good towels, thus she’d gone for the toilet paper instead, but we were beyond caring.
Sam passed me the bloody toilet paper, which I went to flush while he held her nose with the towel. She then explained what happened to her uncle Tim.
“I got in the middle. I didn’t think.”
Tim had been hitting his girlfriend when Hannah came around the corner of the house, trying to catch a kitten that three boys had been throwing around like a ball.
“Why do people treat animals that way?” she asked me.
“Focus,” Sam warned her.
“It’s in the bathtub,” she told me.
Of course it was.
The kitten in question, who was very cute and very tiny, had been saved because my daughter, even in the middle of fighting with a man twice her size, was not about to leave behind a little black cat with white feet.
“We have to take you to the hospital,” I informed her.
“But the kitten,” she whimpered.
“Jake and Kola can wash it and feed it, and we’ll take it to the vet tomorrow.”
“Talk about Tim,” Sam instructed her, moving the towel as Hannah twitched her nose. The blood had stopped, and I was relieved.
Hannah had seen Tim make a fist, but before he could land the next punch, she was there, between the adults, putting him off-balance enough to remove the woman’s shirt from his grip. In her haste to free Tim’s victim, Hannah took the blow, but the second never touched her. She had him on his knees from a kick to the abdomen, on the ground from an elbow to his face, and finally her crossed legs on his throat deprived him of oxygen for the needed amount of time.
“So you knocked out my cousin?”
She nodded.
“And where is he?”
“On the side of the house by the shed. I ran inside because my nose was bleeding, and the woman wasn’t helping. She was just screaming at me.”
Sam nodded.
“Call 911,” Sam directed me, and I dialed as he checked his daughter over, and we all heard the pitiful cry from the tub.
“He’s supercute, Dad,” she told her father.
He grunted and was checking her over for a second time as I went to retrieve the kitten. She was right, he was adorable, and was purring as I carried him back to Sam and Hannah.
“Let me see you,” he demanded, and I stood still for my inspection as Hannah took the baby from me.
Sam lifted my chin and turned my head right and left, as I was sure he’d done to Hannah. He always liked to double-check in case he missed anything. After kissing us both, and agreeing that the kitten was cute, he yanked the guy to his feet, held his bicep, and walked him down the hall with Hannah and I following.
Outside, we walked to where Hannah directed us, to the opposite corner of the house, and by then there was a crowd around the passed-out Tim. Most notably, his girlfriend was beside him, stroking his hair.
“You little bitch,” she swore at Hannah.
Sam shoved the other man down beside his unconscious cousin. “If you say one more word to my daughter, I will have you arrested with these two.”
Her eyes looked like they were about to pop out of her head.
“Nod to let me know you understand.”
She nodded several times.
“What the hell is going on?” Sam’s uncle Joe bellowed as he came charging up with his wife, Tanya, who Sam had never met. She was Joe’s fourth wife, and Sam had only ever met the first one. Thomas and Regina were there as well, and I watched as Regina stepped over the legs of the still unmoving Tim to reach Hannah.
“Oh, sweetie,” she crooned and passed the mewling bundle of fluff that was Beelzebub—Hannah had already named him—to me so she could hug her granddaughter.
“What did Tim do?” Thomas asked his son.
“What did Tim do?” Joe echoed, horrified, gesturing at his supine son.
“Yes,” Thomas explained to his brother, “my son doesn’t hit people for no reason, and the fact that Tim is still breathing after hitting Sam’s daughter means there’s a story.”
Sam stepped in beside his father and pointed at the stranger. “I hit that guy for putting his hands on Jory, and Hannah kicked the crap outta Tim for putting his hands on his girlfriend.”
Joe’s mouth dropped open. “Your daughter knocked out my son?”
“Cathy,” Tanya yelled, “Tim is still hitting you?”
“Still?” Regina was horrified; it was there in her voice, and she made it carry to everyone in the crowd. She had been an actress of stage and screen, after all.
“He only hits me when he drinks,” Cathy muttered in his defense.
Everyone heard the sirens then.