Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Her daddy.
Thickness grew at the back of my throat.
She would know it today. Who he was, and where she was supposed to be.
Excitement shivered through me at the thought. At what her precious little face would look like when he told her.
I wanted that for her so desperately.
Was I completely wrong that I wanted that to apply to me? That I’d know who he was completely—this man who asked me to stay?
This man who was promising me forever?
To surrender all this pain and grief and loss?
Asking me to allow him to hold a piece of it?
Kane’s boots ate up the floor as he came our way, and he dropped a kiss to the crown of Maci’s head. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Angel Face. I had to search around for the blanket in that mess of a closet.”
“Sounds like you should do a better job of cleanin’.” Maci shrugged one of her shoulders.
Another low toll of laughter. “Guess I’d better, hadn’t I?”
Emerald eyes found mine. Sparks and light. Stealing sanity and breath.
He took a slight step in my direction, covering me whole, the man a landslide. I shook when he reached out and ran his thumb across my brow, his voice both deep and tender when he murmured low enough that Maci wouldn’t hear.
“You’re frowning awful hard.” Concern flitted across his features. “Don’t be sad, baby. In the middle of all the sadness, I think this might be a good day.”
I saw what he was pleading for. For me to do this with him. To be at his side. And I wanted to be.
“I’m not sad, Kane,” I whispered back.
At least not over this.
I wanted this for them. They both deserved it. The fullness of who they were.
Maci slammed the lid shut on the basket. “Time to go, lovey doves.”
Surprise jolted me back.
“Lovie doves?” I didn’t even mean for it to drop from my mouth as a question.
She hopped off the stool. “You love my Mr. Kane because you give him so many kisses, just like my auntie Raven gives my uncle Otto so many kisses.”
I didn’t know if it was horror or embarrassment that hit me first.
How had she seen that? I’d made sure we’d been careful. That whatever was happening between me and Kane was happening behind closed doors.
But I realized it’d been getting harder to keep it that way.
The covert brushes of his hands. The times when he’d grab me when he thought we were alone and kiss me into a needy puddle, growly promises dripping from his mouth about what he was going to do to me when he really got me alone.
Kane set his big hand on her shoulder, but he remained looking at me. “That’s because I really like giving your auntie Em all the kisses. All the kisses in the world.”
Maci giggled, while I struggled to stand.
To stand beneath what was clearly on his face.
The plea that was written there.
Stay. Stay. Stay.
I grabbed the handle to the basket. “We’d better get going then.”
“Yay! It’s about time, you slowpokes.” Maci started for the big sliding door that led out back.
“Let me take that,” Kane rumbled near my ear, his hand going to the handle.
Energy snapped at the bare contact.
I heaved out a breath, and he angled in closer. “You don’t have to hold it all, Little Warrior.”
A smirk took to the edge of his mouth as he angled back. “Some things are just better when you do them together.”
FORTY-FIVE
KANE
Maci ran across the lawn ahead of us, searching for the perfect spot for our picnic.
Emery was at my side.
My footsteps were a whole ton slower than typical on account of my stomach being in fucking knots of anxiety and anticipation.
Twisted and tied as I thought of how to tell my little girl that I was her dad. How to make her understand when it hardly made any sense to the rest of us.
But I wasn’t sure that the exact words even mattered. The only thing that did was the amount of love that gushed out of me when Maci turned around when she got to the big shade tree that was about midway between the house and the stream.
Her beaming face lit up beneath the bright sunshine that poured down from the endless expanse of blue above.
But she was the true light.
This joy that had been found in me.
Both she and the woman who seemed every bit as nervous as me. As if we were trudging for desolation rather than the nirvana that we’d achieved.
But I got it.
There was a big, gaping hole cut out in the middle of this paradise. A figure I barely knew but who had been so intrinsic to these two.
Their hearts had to take on a brand-new mold since such a significant piece had been scored out of them.
My little girl jumped up and down, waving her hands overhead as she shouted, “Over here, over here! I fink I got the very perfect spot.”