Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Her mouth parted.
“Oh, and you remember the time he left our meeting because he heard that she was in that wreck?” Copper asked as he took the car controller from Webber. “He left so abruptly that we had to vote without him.”
“Oh, yeah.” Gunner snorted. “I can’t tell you how many times he’s up and left work because she was stranded somewhere.”
Calli’s face flushed.
“I guess we should’ve seen it sooner,” Doc drawled.
I rolled my eyes.
They probably should have.
But I’d done my level best to stay in the shadows when I did my stalker thing.
Though, there was only so much you could hide when there was a woman that did her level best to do everything herself and fail.
“What’s the issue here?” Searcy laughed. “I’m glad that they finally got it out in the open.”
Calli turned to her sister. “Not you, too.”
“I saw it from the very beginning.” She snorted. “You both make it cosmically easy to see, though. I’m just glad you waited until you were done with college to make the move.”
The remote control started up, and Pane popped his head up off my chest like he’d been pinched.
He raised his tiny little arm to look around, and his breath caught. “Wow.”
He scrambled off my chest, leaving the blanket, and made a beeline for the car.
Doc caught him up before he could touch it and pulled him into his lap.
“Look here,” Doc ordered. “You got one, too.”
Since the only gifts that were there were the ones that Doc and Searcy bought, Searcy had to hastily reach under the tree to grab the ones we’d been intending to open that morning but hadn’t.
Upon the snow melting, everyone wanted to head over to make sure that Calli was okay.
And they’d crashed the party, so to speak.
Not that anyone minded.
Searcy and Doc had gone so far beyond overboard with all the kids’ gifts—winning the lottery definitely had its perks—that there was enough to go around for all and then some.
Searcy stood up and stretched, then walked over to me. “You might be the greatest baby whisperer ever to be.”
I leaned forward and held her youngest out to her. Searcy took Dalton with a smile, then nuzzled her face into his.
Calli used my pant leg to get up, then bent over so that both of her hands were braced on my knees.
She studied my face for a long second before she said, “All of the things that I got for you burned to the ground, too.”
I raised my hand and enclosed my palm around her wrist. “That’s okay.”
“I got you a thing for your bike.”
“What kind of thing?” I swept my thumb over the muscle on the inside of her arm.
“These things called Gremlin Bells,” she said. “They’re supposed to ward off the evil spirits and serve as a totem to ward off the gremlins that cause bad things to happen to bikes.” She bit her lip. “I saw that Elaine had gifted some to Knight. And the night before the accident, they’d fallen off. He’d said something while we were at dinner at Apollo’s. Said that he had to get a new clasp to hold them onto the frame of the bike. I asked them about the purpose, and he told me about how they had to be gifted. And their significance. I ordered you a set that night.”
I moved my hand up to the bend in her elbow and tugged her toward me.
She came willingly, squeezing into the small space between my body and the arm of the chair.
She rested her head on my chest, uncaring of the sweat and drool Pane had left behind, and curled up against me. Her hands went up under her face as she watched the controlled chaos around us.
“Do you want kids one day?” I asked.
I mean, I assumed that she wasn’t too hip on them, but I thought I’d ask.
“One day. In the far, far future,” she said. “Maybe in five or so years, once I’ve established myself in my job. When I’m more stable, and don’t have so many things I want to do in life.”
“Besides graduating top of your class and getting a job?”
“I want to visit the world,” she said. “I want to see all the mountains in the United States. I want to visit all of the national parks. I want to visit Japan and see the cherry blossoms in real life. I want to go to Manchester and visit Oxford Street during Christmas so I can see everything lit up. I want to go to all of the Christmas markets in Cologne, Strasbourg, Vienna, and Prague. I want to see the northern lights. I want to visit Alaska and see the bears eating the salmon in the middle of Kisatchie National Forest. And, let’s just say, that doesn’t sound super easy with a kid.”