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)
Cash’s arm was looped around her waist and the two of them were swaying.
Softly and perfectly in sync.
Though he was barely making contact with her. That fact alone was excruciatingly painful.
“The wait’s gonna be worth it.” He had to believe it.
It’d been exactly one week since she touched herself in his room. One week since the dynamic between them had completely shifted.
The next morning, he’d shown up at her house and asked her on a proper date.
One they would be taking after the game tonight.
He hadn’t touched her more than wrapping his arms around her in all that time.
Wanting to do this thing right.
Show her how important she was.
“Are you sure about that?” Playfulness clashed with the desire written in her expression. “You seem awfully confident.”
“Completely confident.” His voice was low and rough. Filled with his need for her that had become a living thing in him over the last week. He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. “Can’t wait to kiss you.”
Redness flashed to her cheeks, and a bit of that shyness peeked through. “I’m kind of excited for that, too.”
“When I start, I’m not ever going to stop. You know that, right?” he told her.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Cash jerked back when an engine suddenly roared, and he turned to watch as Matthew peeled out on the gravel and tore out onto the street.
His stomach soured with dread, but it left him like anger. “God, he’s so fucked up right now. I don’t know what his problem is.”
Daisy brushed her fingers down his arm. “I know what it’s like to worry about the ones we love most. About the decisions they’re making.”
Daisy knew it firsthand. It broke his heart that she’d been so worried about her sister. Hadley had completely spiraled. Was clearly strung out, even though she rarely came around.
He looked back at Daisy as she kept pouring out her encouragement. “But we all deal with tragedy in our own way. We have to believe they’ll figure it out. Find themselves in the middle of their grief.”
“I hope so,” he murmured as he curled his arms around her. Knowing he’d never be so foolish to let go. No matter what happened in his life.
THIRTY-FOUR
DAISY
I was nervous. Really freaking nervous.
I was supposed to just show up at Cash’s friend’s house and meet these people he considered family? People I didn’t know when I once felt like I knew Cash better than anyone?
And what? Explain to them what I asked of him? Tell them what I’d gotten him involved in?
Tell them he was going to marry me and start the proceedings to adopt my children, you know, just in case my ex hunted me down and offed me?
Yeah.
They were going to hate me.
“We get to go pway wif de kids?” Eva was bent at the knees, kneeling so low and bouncing that her butt nearly touched the ground. She grinned that beaming smile, my youngest daughter wearing a cute summer romper with white and mint green stripes with a big strawberry on the front.
My heart swelled to overflowing. None of the kids had stopped talking about this little excursion since I told them what we were doing.
A picnic.
A picnic with Cash’s friends.
Before I could answer, Colin cut in, banging a stick on the ground as he called, “Yep, we do! Right, Mr. Cash?”
A shockwave of energy blasted out from where Cash stood near a silver Suburban.
The sky was blue and clear, and birds chirped as they flitted from tree to tree.
While the man looked like a dark storm standing below the rays of the sun.
A tremor ripped through me.
I made a big, big mistake last night.
Because I couldn’t stop thinking about it. What we did. The line we crossed.
Those eyes found mine. A hazel blaze that ate me up.
Even from where I stood at the bottom of the porch steps to where he had pulled the SUV up in the drive, he felt it and knew exactly what I was thinking.
He turned toward Colin, who skipped toward him. Duke trotted along at my son’s side.
“Yeah. We’re going to go hang out with my family.”
He looked back at me.
His expression both harsh and warm.
I shivered beneath it.
Behind me, the door clattered shut. I shifted a fraction to see Addy walk out. The beading kit Cash had purchased for her firmly held in her hands.
“I’m ready!” Her feet pounded across the porch and down the stairs, her voice carrying on the wind. “Do you think Maci is old enough to make a bracelet with me? I know she’s two years younger than me, but my mom said sometimes girls are more mature than their age, and I think I could probably teach her exactly what to do, and I won’t let her swallow any of them or anything.”
A gruff chuckle rolled out of Cash. “Pretty sure Maci can take on the world, so I’m thinkin’ she’ll be just fine making a bracelet or two.”