Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 54520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
He tosses it out like nothing, but to me it’s everything.
Still smiling, my gaze drifts to the entryway. Linc leans against the frame, arms crossed, watching me with a look that cuts deeper than bone. It isn’t casual—it’s consuming. The kind of look a girl could drown in and never want to surface from.
By the time dinner rolls around, everything feels easier, natural even. Laughter drifts across the table, stories weaving back and forth, and for once, I’m not on the outside looking in. With this family, I feel like I finally belong.
It’s been a week of hard grind—back-to-back calls, sleepless nights, and hours brutal enough to make you forget what day it is.
That also means a week without Harlow. Seven days since I’ve had her in my arms, heard her laugh, and kissed that smart mouth of hers. Tonight, I plan to make up for every damn second of it.
The small box in my pocket presses against me, anticipation riding hard. I spotted it in a gift shop while we were on a call in the next county, tucked between cheap souvenirs like it had been waiting for me. The guys gave me hell the whole drive back, but I didn’t care. Some things are worth the hit to my pride, and the look on Harlow’s face when she sees this will be one of them.
By the time I pull up to her condo, a storm is rolling in, steel-blue clouds dragging across the mountain peaks like dark waves.
They press low as I cut the engine and climb out, shadows trailing me up the walkway. Just as I reach the front steps, a sound slices through the quiet. A sharp, relentless beeping blaring through the house.
Fire alarm.
Dread slams into me, heavy and hard.
Bolting up the stairs, I shoulder through the door, nearly ripping it off the hinges. Smoke hits the second I cross the threshold—thick and acrid.
“Harlow!” The shout tears from me, boots pounding across the hardwood as I barrel through the living room.
“In here!” She coughs, voice raw.
Two strides and I’m in the kitchen, only to stop cold, chaos punching through me.
Pots scatter the counters, the sink’s a charred wreck, and in the middle of it all stands Harlow—barefoot in cutoffs and my hoodie, broom raised like a weapon as she hacks beneath the blaring alarm.
“Come on, you bastard. Break already.”
I move fast, ripping the alarm from its bracket and tearing the battery free. The shriek cuts off, leaving only the ragged sound of her coughs.
Cursing, I cross the room and wrench the windows open.
Cool mountain air floods in, dragging the smoke out until only a thin haze clings to the corners.
Harlow waves at it, still sputtering. I catch her shoulders, checking her over.
“Jesus, are you okay?” The question comes out rough, my chest still hammering. “What the hell happened?”
Her eyes flash, frazzled and furious. “What happened?” she shrieks, slashing a hand toward the wreckage. “I’ll tell you what happened. I wanted to cook you a nice dinner. Pot roast. Because your mom told me it’s your favorite. She even gave me the recipe. I grocery shopped and prepped all damn day, only to fuck the entire thing up!”
She storms out of the kitchen, yanking off my sweatshirt as she goes, the one I never get enough seeing her in.
“First, the meat wouldn’t brown,” she says, her voice spilling out down the hall. “Then the carrots turned to mush. Then I dropped the potatoes all over the floor trying to mash them.”
I trail behind her, doing my damnedest not to notice how see-through the tank top is clinging to her back as words pour out of her like a runaway train.
“It took me forever to clean that mess up, and I thought, screw it—we’ll just have pasta,” she rattles on, tossing the sweatshirt into the hamper. “But then Penny called to go over baby shower plans for Ellie and Gunnar—which, by the way, is on the eighteenth and you’re invited—so now I’m knee-deep in balloons and diaper games when I hear this loud pop.”
She throws her hands wide, emphasizing those words.
“Next thing I know, the fire alarm’s screaming, smoke is choking me out, and the pot roast? Oh, it’s not just burned. It’s fully engulfed. Huge flames, Linc! Like the gates of hell opened in my oven and tried to drag me down with it. All because you had to love pot roast instead of something simple like spaghetti!”
By the time she finishes, her chest is heaving, cheeks flushed, and hair wild.
She’s a fucking disaster, and god help me, the sexiest one I’ve ever seen.
I drag a hand over my jaw, the rasp filling the sudden quiet. “So, I’m guessing pot roast won’t be on the menu again anytime soon.”
The joke is meant to coax a smile, maybe even a laugh. Instead, she shakes her head, defeated. “This is what I get for trying to do something I’m not capable of.”