Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69775 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“What is?”
I turned to find a woman there with a toddler on her hip.
I recognized her immediately.
“Magnolia Baker?”
“That’s me.”
I gestured toward the field. “Beau told me before practice started that there was discontent among the masses. I agreed that it was going to be a problem.”
She sat down in the chair two down from me and then placed her toddler onto the chair between us.
I smiled down at the blue-eyed blonde girl, who dismissed me immediately in favor of the small soccer ball she had in her hands.
“Cute kid,” I said.
“Very,” Magnolia said. “I came here to check out the team. He said that there were issues, and I’m not sure that I want to deal with the bullshit. I’m in my last year, maybe two. I want to play for a team that I like. This team might be more trouble than it’s worth.” She looked around. “Plus, I’ve never lived in the north before in my life. I’m born and bred Tennessee sunshine. This place might very well kill me.”
She gave an exaggerated shiver.
I blinked at her. “It’s sixty degrees out, ma’am. It doesn’t get much more perfect than that here.”
She made a face. “That’s the problem. I’m not sure I know how to control my emotions in the cold.”
I grinned.
The whistle sounded, and we both turned our attention back to the field.
“What are they doing first?”
“Timed mile,” I answered.
“Nettie will smoke them,” Magnolia guessed.
I shrugged. “She’s seven months pregnant so…maybe not.”
Magnolia whipped her head toward me. “She’s what?”
“Seven months,” I repeated. “She still runs. A lot. But I doubt she wins this.”
“We’ll see,” Magnolia admitted. “Even pregnant—which she doesn’t look like she is at all—she’s going to be faster than most of them. If not all.”
They all lined up at the start line and were off.
Nettie didn’t try to come out in front.
She stayed about the middle of the pack for the first two laps.
I looked down at my watch and shook my head.
As of right now, she was running about a five-forty-five-mile pace.
Not her fastest, but definitely not her slowest, either.
“In high school,” I mused as she rounded the second curve of her third lap, “she used to get roped into running track. She absolutely hated it. Said the feeling before a race was the absolute worst. I used to run with her to pace her, but eventually, even I couldn’t keep up with her. She’s damn quick.”
“I can’t believe she’s running that fast seven months pregnant,” Magnolia grumbled. “When I was pregnant, I could barely breathe. I ballooned up quick, and everyone thought that I was having twins.”
“She still has abs.” I chuckled. “I kind of wish she was big and fat with my baby.”
“She’s yours then?”
Nettie and the captain were neck and neck now, first and second place.
It could go to either one of them.
“She’s mine,” I confirmed. “We got married a couple of weeks ago. But we’ve been each other’s since the moment we met when I was fifteen and she was fourteen.”
“I had that once,” she murmured. “Would kill to have it back.”
I looked over at her. “This one’s dad?”
“Yeah.” She paused. “And I wouldn’t kill to have him back, per se. But that feeling of being someone’s person.”
I was quiet for a long time before I said, “Maybe you’ll find that here.”
The captain and Nettie crossed the finish line at the same time, both of them laughing.
Nettie lifted her shirt to wipe some sweat off her brow, and I devoured her.
Pregnant with abs.
Jesus, this woman was a miracle.
“Can you watch her while I go introduce myself?” the woman asked hopefully.
I raised a brow at her. “Of course.”
“She’s not good with people, but she’s been sitting next to you for a while, and I think that she’ll be okay,” she admitted.
I nodded once. “Go ahead. If she screams bloody murder, I’ll bring her down to you.”
Magnolia laughed and started down the steps of the stadium.
The little girl watched her go, then looked at me with an accusation on her face. “Hey, it wasn’t my choice to leave you here.”
The little girl gripped the soccer ball again, softly murmuring to herself.
I kept an eye on the youngin next to me, but also kept an eye on the field as the two newcomers drew the old teammates together.
They all talked animatedly, and that was the first moment that I realized that the team would be okay.
They’d make it.
It’d be a rough road at first, but with the two veterans and Eddy, they’d be playing like a team in no time.
I watched the team captain place her hand on Nettie’s belly. Nettle placed her hand on top of hers and pressed down.
My smile grew.
Forty-five minutes later, the little one next to me got tired of my company and got up.
I picked her up, because she looked like she might very well topple all the way down the stairs if I let her go on her own, and she glared at me.