Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“I wish my dad had a cheerleader,” he said quietly.
Uh-oh.
I was going to have to fight crying again.
“I do too,” I said huskily.
“Anniversary of Mom’s death was a few days ago. My aunt makes a big thing about it. I always find a way to bow out, but I got up in her shit this time.”
“Did she know—?”
“About my bio dad? Yeah. I’ve been up in her shit before about that. Not that I wanted her to tell me anything about it. Just that, when she was trying to defend her sister, she tried to defend that, and I don’t give two fucks about that. What I give a fuck about is how Mom connived to take Dad with her.”
“Do you think she knew he’d take it that far?”
He shook his head. “No. I would never in my life have thought he’d go there, and I can’t imagine she did either. But she killed something in him anyway. Something she knew meant everything to him. So she knew what she was doing. I firmly believe that.”
“It could have just been guilt,” I suggested.
“Mom never felt that emotion a day in her life.”
He would know.
Therefore, I didn’t say anything.
He sat back in his seat but kept hold of my hands, resting them on the table. “I never met this guy. Aunt Elaine said I should look for him. But he means nothing to me. He offered up some cells and DNA while fucking a married woman. Maybe he’s a good guy. Maybe he knows about me and wonders about me. I doubt it. He was just a good time for Mom, and then he was history.”
“I don’t have to tell you, that’s one hundred percent your call, and I’ll support you whatever way you play it.”
He squeezed my hands. “Thank you, baby.”
“I’ve been worried about this story,” I confessed. “I sensed it was there. But I’m glad you told me.”
He studied me a beat before he replied, “Mabel, this is what makes me. I got her in me, and I don’t know who he is.”
“So?”
He did one of his slow blinks.
I smiled and hoped it didn’t come off shaky (success!). “As far as I’m concerned, they made you really easy to look at. And for that, I thank them. Other than that, my guy is Jonathan Walter Hutchison’s son. And I want to know more about your dad, but I already know that way works for me.”
He let my hands go so he could hook me behind my head and pull me across the table to him.
It was a hard kiss.
It was a long kiss.
It was a closed-mouth kiss.
And it said everything he needed to tell me.
Then, when it was done, he let me go, whistled and put our breakfast plates on the floor.
Tonks and Hannibal fell on them like they were perfectly grilled, rare, sixty-four-ounce prime ribs.
“Hey!” I cried. “You gave my food to the dogs!”
“It’s cold and my woman isn’t gonna eat cold food,” Hutch said, heading to the fridge for the eggs.
Well then.
Okay.
I grabbed my coffee and brought my other heel up to the chair so I could watch my guy cook.
“You wanna know something?” he asked while cracking eggs.
“Is it about you?”
He looked over his shoulder at me. “Yeah.”
“Then I want to know everything.”
He smiled, and it was soft and sweet.
Yeesh.
The man Jonathan Walter Hutchison made was totally falling in love with me.
He went back to the eggs and said, “I eat clean because of her.”
Whoa.
I wasn’t expecting that.
But then…
The ice cream. Candy. Cookies.
The treats that weren’t a treat, I could see that’d bring up bad memories.
He put the eggs back in the fridge, got the sausage, returned the skillet to the range and threw some in it.
“I like what my diet gives me. Sustained energy. Clear mind. Good sleep.” He tossed a grin over his shoulder this time. “But I’m thinkin’ I might find more times to cheat.”
I grinned back, and his was big, but mine was bigger.
Hutch made our second breakfast.
I sipped coffee.
And fifty yards away, in the trees, under the snow and their tombstones, Chisolm and Clementine rested easy.
Because that kitchen was providing what it was put in to provide.
Warmth.
A safe space.
And love.
THIRTY-SEVEN
Halloween
Mabel
“I got a Twix. And I got a Snickers. And I got some Nerds.”
Emma, in her fairy costume (with a coat over it, something she did not like, but her growing stash was taking her mind off that ongoing tantrum) was skip-walking, holding Hutch’s hand, all the while inventorying her candy haul, doing this as we walked Lillian and Harry’s street on Halloween.
Liam, in a Captain America costume (no surprise), had raced ahead to the next house, dragging Brett along with him.
Emma stopped dead and looked up at Hutch.
“I don’t have no Reese’s, Missa Hutch.”
“I don’t have any Reese’s,” Abigail corrected, walking with me behind them, carrying our portable wine glasses, she had Tonks’s lead, I had Hannibal’s.