Total pages in book: 174
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
“You know this is only temporary, Daisy.” I didn’t try to keep the warning from my voice.
She flinched like the words caused her pain, but I needed to say it.
Lay it out.
We couldn’t go into this thing with false expectations.
“I know.”
Why the fuck did I hate her agreeing?
She turned back to rinsing the dishes. “So…how do we do it?”
“We go to the courthouse and get married.” Nerves rattled through me. Fear and a new determination that thudded through my veins. “I will handle the paperwork.”
A few keystrokes and I’d have half the process of what Daisy was asking accomplished. I pushed on to the hard part. “When do we want to do this?”
She laughed a disjointed sound. “Probably sooner rather than later. You know, so you don’t get cold feet,” she ribbed.
“Not going to get cold feet. Made you a promise.”
Her attention swung to me for a beat. All the old promises I once made filtered out into the air between us.
Casting a verdict that I was a liar.
Only with the expression on her face, I knew she wasn’t judging me.
“Monday.” The single word shot out of me.
Resolute.
Surprise wheeled her back. “Monday?”
“You said you wouldn’t feel peace until you knew your kids would for sure be safe, and I want to give you that peace.”
Couldn’t wait until I could give it to her in another way.
Permanently.
I had picked up a bare trail this morning when I was in my office before sunrise. Fucker had been in Florida two weeks ago.
I could taste it.
The retribution that was coming for the girl who I’d sworn I would always protect.
Now that was a promise I was going to keep.
“Okay.” Awe flooded out with the single word. Those cornflower eyes swam and danced with hope and appreciation.
I loaded a few more dishes into the dishwasher.
In the background, Eva screeched, “I wanna watch Paw Patrol! I wanna watch Paw Patrol!”
The title rang a bell. Both Maci and Nolan were obsessed with it, and apparently, it had rubbed off on Finn, too.
Uncertainty parched my insides, my mind screaming at me not to be a fool, but the words were getting loose, anyway. “Think you and the kids should come with me to meet my family tomorrow. They gather on Sundays.”
Surprise left her on a breath, and she fully turned to face me, that little wrinkle denting between her brows. “You want me to meet your family?”
“If you’re gonna be my wife, think it’s probably prudent if you do.” I tried to make it light, the way it used to be between us, but my chest tightened when I said it.
Daisy blinked, no words for the longest time before that sweet warmth came spilling out. “I would like that. I’ve spent so much time alone…I…I want it to be different here.”
Dread and apprehension spiraled through the middle of me, along with some other foreign feeling so far gone I’d almost forgotten what it felt like.
I forced out the one word I could manage around the barb in my throat. “Good.”
TWENTY-TWO
CASH
SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD
Cash stood in the doorway of the hospital room, his heart in his throat, not knowing what the fuck he was supposed to say.
Matthew was in the bed, his right leg outside the covers with this huge metal brace with these big pins going all the way through his skin and into the bone.
His bone that had been crushed.
Their mother and father sat at his bedside, holding his hand while that rock rolled up and down Cash’s throat.
“I’m so sorry, man,” Cash muttered.
Cash had just started a new season. Spent the whole summer training to take his brother’s spot as starting quarterback since Matthew would be playing his first year in college.
Well, at least in the times when Cash wasn’t hanging out with Daisy.
And now…
Pain twitched the side of Matthew’s jaw. Cash wasn’t sure if it was from the injury or from the agony of getting his life goals ripped out from under him.
Matthew had been told he wouldn’t be able to play football again.
And football was Matthew’s life. Cash understood it on a level that he doubted many others could.
“It’s fine.” Matthew’s voice was hard.
Brittle.
Broken.
“You never know what’s gonna happen,” Cash chanced. “There are always all these stories about people overcoming the odds. Getting told they can’t do something and coming back and proving the doubters wrong.”
Matthew’s laugh was hollow. “Don’t feed me that shit, Cash. You know what this is. I’m finished.”
“Come on, don’t say that.”
“You know it’s fucking true.”
“Matthew.” Cash took a faltering step forward.
Matthew turned his head away. “Don’t need this right now. Just leave. All of you. I want to be alone.”
Cash shuffled up the main sidewalk of the school from the parking lot. A toil of things inside him that he didn’t quite recognize.
A vibration rolled through him, twitching his muscles into disorder. Something sticky and stagnant.