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)
But I couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help the flash of hurt that penetrated as I realized I might not know Cash Cunningham at all.
Not anymore.
He glowered. “Give her to me, Daisy. You came here for a reason, and that was for me to take care of you, and that starts right now.”
No one had ever sounded so unfriendly in their offering.
Giggling, Eva tucked her head into my shoulder and peered out at him. “I want the big gwumpy giant to carry me.”
A splutter of surprised laughter erupted from me, then I pinched my lips closed because Cash wasn’t laughing.
He only scowled while he reached out with his meaty palms and pried my daughter from my arms. Reluctantly, I let her go, while Eva screeched her approval.
Wrapping her little arms around his thick neck as she turned that beaming smile up at him. “Now I don’t got tired legs because you can carry me, huh, Big Gwumpy Giant?”
“Hey, no fair! What about me? You think you could carry me, Big Grumpy Giant?” Colin hollered.
Oh lord, my kids were not going to make this any easier on me.
Cash only grunted in response before he turned and wound past Colin and Addy and started prowling back through the forest, climbing up the mountain and dodging branches and ducking below limbs with my youngest daughter in his arms and loaded down with our belongings as if he were carrying nothing at all.
“Is this all your land?” Colin asked like Cash hadn’t completely ignored his last question.
“Of course, it is. Don’t you remember the map?” Addy dished the details before I was ready to give them. “He’s got like a million miles. That’s why he didn’t find us for two whole days.”
Cash looked back from over his shoulder, and his eyebrow arched in incredulity.
You’ve been here for two days? And a map? What the hell is going on, Daisy? He didn’t need to say it aloud for me to hear it plain as day.
Both irritation and worry lined every inch of his face.
Nerves scattered, and the terror of what I was attempting prowled up my spine and sent chills scattering across my flesh.
Unsettled, I peeked into the dense forest again. The fear not quite as great as it had been. Not with Cash six feet away.
We continued to trudge through the thicket. Daylight waned with each moment that passed as we climbed and wound and edged deeper into the woods.
Finally, we broke into a clearing.
My heart nearly stopped, and I gaped at a meadowy expanse that held a quaint cabin hedged in a deep copse of trees.
A single-story home made of logs with a pitched roof and a chimney rising toward the heavens. It had a covered porch that ran along the front with three steps leading up to it.
Basic and plain and so beautiful it nearly brought me to my knees.
Because it was a cabin that looked exactly like the one he promised to build me when I was seventeen.
FIVE
CASH
What the hell did I think I was doing? Carrying this little girl who clung to my neck like I was her savior while I led the rest of her family toward my sanctuary?
My cabin meant for me and me alone.
Except I figured Daisy knew that was complete and utter bullshit when she stumbled to a stop behind me after she caught sight of the cabin that I built with my bare hands.
One that had been imagined during teenaged middle of the night giggles and foolish dreams.
Building it had been instinct. Unable to stop what my hand sketched before I physically began to bring it to life.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I forced myself to keep moving over the gravel drive to the three steps that led up to the porch. My boots thudded against the wooden stairs as I climbed them, and Eva cinched down tighter on my neck as I moved across the porch toward the front door. “You got a bed for me, Big Gwumpy Giant? I got a sweeping bag if I got to sweep on the floor.”
My chest fucking squeezed. Squeezed in something I absolutely could not feel. A groaning of some long-dead piece of me.
I didn’t respond. I only set her onto her feet before I grabbed my phone from my pocket and punched in the code to disarm the security system, then pulled out my keyring and worked through the locks.
Guts a tangle of nerves as I tried to decipher exactly what was going down with Daisy.
Her words spinning around me like I was surrounded by fiends who were coming in for the kill.
I’m in trouble.
It injected aggression into my veins. The violence that forever simmered in my spirit thrashed and pulsed. Vying for a way to be set free so I could inflict the pain I always thirsted for.