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)
Scorching.
Penetrating.
All that fear and worry she’d been feeling came at me full force.
Bashing against my being.
I couldn’t do anything but slide off the top of the picnic table.
Guts a tangle of uncertainty and knees weak when the three of them started in my direction. Both women held onto one of the little girl’s hands, this child who was skipping and jumping and giggling between them.
Swore, with every step they took, an earthquake rolled beneath my feet. My entire world shaken the closer they got.
It was Emery who brought them to a stop when they got within ten feet.
A wall of volatile energy separated us.
The woman at war as she stood there staring at me.
“Kane.” My name was nothing but a plea and a warning.
But for once, since the first time I’d seen her, she wasn’t who I was staring at.
Because I was fucking stuck.
Glued.
Chained to this little thing who was just beaming up at me.
Nothing but chubby cheeks and cherub face and those eyes that were forever going to haunt me in my dreams.
Piercing emerald rimmed in gold.
She had a dimple on her chin and her hair was done in two braids on either side of her head.
This child nothing but perfection.
The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Is this your friend who you really wanted me to meet, Auntie Em?” Her little voice was tinkling. No chance of keeping the delight out of it.
My chest tightened at the sound.
“Yes. This is my friend, Kane.” Emery lifted her chin and inhaled a tremulous breath. “Kane, this is Maci.”
The little girl let go of a giggle that battered against the tension that held the rest of us.
“Hi, Mr. Kane! It’s very nice to meet you! Did you want to play at the park with us? I really like the lake, and I got a baving suit and everyfing. And guess what?!”
Fuck me.
It was the most adorable ramble I’d ever heard. The little stuttered lisp that rolled out with each of her words.
Emotion clamped down so tight on my spirit I didn’t know how I wasn’t bawling like a baby. The burn of it in my heart and the sear of it in my soul.
This force that rearranged everything.
Who I thought I was and who I was supposed to be.
We take care of who we love most.
“What?” I finally managed to ask around the clog of emotion in my throat.
Maci lowered her voice like it was supposed to be a big secret. “We brought a picnic.”
“No way.” The words were rough.
Widening those green eyes, she nodded emphatically. “Yes way.”
Could barely swallow around the chaos that spun around me as I took a couple of steps forward. Might as well have been tiptoeing around landmines as I traversed my way toward the greatest treasure on the other side.
No way to reach it without putting your entire being on the line, all while knowing you’d risk it all to get there.
For the mere chance of staring at its beauty, even if it was only for a second.
At my approach, a shockwave rolled through Emery.
The connection that roiled between us up against her clear devotion she had to the child.
But I didn’t really have time to process any of that.
Not when I was kneeling on one knee in front of the little girl.
My little girl.
“Wow, that sounds like the best way to spend the day,” I rasped around the clot of emotion.
“Which part is your very favorite? The lake or the picnic?” she asked.
“Think all of it since I get to spend it with you.”
The words were shards.
Riddled with an affection so sharp I thought it would cut me in two.
A mournful sound squeezed out of Emery, while Maci swayed between the two women with her cheeks turning pink.
“Really?! Does that mean you want to be my friend? Because I don’t live at my old house anymore because my mommy had to go to heaven, and now I live wif my auntie, and I gotta make a lotta new friends.”
She said it just as natural as could be, while Emery and her mother might as well have been cut down at the knees.
A stabbing of pain so distinct, I thought I could feel them bleeding out.
This inundating wave of sorrow.
Slogging through and drenching everything.
And fuck me, the urge to straighten so I could slip my arms around Emery was close to overbearing. This need to wrap her up. Hold her through the midst of it. Tell her I knew exactly what it felt like to have someone you loved most ripped away.
The only thing I could do was peek up at her.
Eyes slanting between her and her mother, both of them fighting it with everything they had, but clearly losing the battle.
Grief so thick they were choking on it.
I turned back to Maci. “Yeah, Maci, I think I’d like to be your friend.”