Total pages in book: 174
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
I didn’t know how to process exactly what that was.
“Everyone okay?” he asked, his voice gravel.
“Yep!” Colin peeped.
He barely ducked his chin. “Out you go,” he told Colin.
The air heaved out of me, trying to process, to grasp what was happening. Cash led Colin around to our side, then he nudged me out of the way so he could get to Eva.
She remained quiet as he pulled her into the sanctuary of his massive arms, and she curled herself against him. I could almost feel her relief. The comfort the vicious man exuded.
Addy crawled out behind them, and I took both her and Colin’s hands.
With his free hand, Colin waved at Otto and River. “Hi, Uncle River and Uncle Otto! Did you come to visit us?”
Tension gripped them, though Otto forced a big grin. “Yep. We just wanted to stop by to say good night. You’d better get inside and get some rest.”
“Okay,” Colin peeped. I cut both men a glance before I turned and ushered my children up the porch steps. With Eva tucked in his arms, Cash slowly climbed them behind us.
Duke barked wildly from the other side of the door, and Cash pulled out his phone and punched in the code before he stepped around me to undo the locks.
He pushed open the door and Duke came blazing out. Wagging his tail and licking Colin’s face.
Colin giggled and fisted the fur on the sides of his head. Softly and with so much joy and ease that my knees wobbled.
“Come on, it’s late,” Cash grumbled. Addy and Colin complied, heading through the main room and down the hall with Duke on their heels.
Cash worked back through all the locks then reengaged the alarm.
A shiver rolled through me when he keyed into a different screen and metal began to roll over the windows.
He turned back to me. “Told you that no one was going to get to you here.”
“I trust you,” I whispered.
Grimness filled his features, and he came my way. He brushed his lips across my cheek, his murmur darkened to coal. “You shouldn’t.”
He pushed away and continued into the children’s room.
An earthquake trembled beneath his feet.
It sent a tremor rolling through me, and I stood facing away for a moment, trying to gather my bearings, before I turned and inched down the hall. I stalled out in the doorway, watching as he tucked them into their beds.
Swells of protectiveness rushed from him as his intent gaze searched to make sure they were whole and unharmed before he pulled their covers to their chins.
Intensity billowed and bashed.
Every movement he made was inscribed with the ferocity he wore since the moment he noticed the headlights trailing us in the distance.
He finally straightened, every inch of him bristling and bunched.
“Good night, Mommy,” Colin called.
It broke me from the trance, and I tiptoed in, winding around Cash so I could get to Colin’s bed. I leaned over and brushed a kiss to his temple before I whispered, “Good night, my sweet boy.”
I moved to do the same to Addy and Eva.
My heart pressing full and running wild.
Questions came at me from every direction.
Cash hovered near the doorway.
A tower of darkness.
A cover of steel.
Forcing myself upright, I slowly turned and shuffled across the room.
That tension ballooned.
Energy crackling.
Lashes that struck like lightning through the dense, suffocating air.
Cash only watched me as I tiptoed out, his presence a squall that swarmed as I stepped out into the hall.
He pulled the children’s door closed, leaving it open an inch.
His big body vibrated as he lingered there, his head downturned and his hand tremoring on the knob.
Finally, he shifted in my direction, and he slowly edged my way.
A shockwave of severity slammed me.
My breaths turned shallow.
Ragged pants that curled between us like a call.
His palm slipped to my cheek.
So at odds with the brutality that emanated from him.
“You should leave, Daisy. You should pack up your children and get as far away from me as you can.”
Hurt stabbed into my heart, and I could barely speak. “Is that what you want? You want me to leave?”
A hot stream of incredulity puffed out of him. Anger ridging every bulging muscle of his body. His words were gruff and hard. “You think I want you to leave? You think I want you to be anywhere else than right here with me? At my side?”
My stomach tumbled, and my mouth grew dry. “I…”
“My life has been nothing, Daisy. Fucking empty until you and those kids came into it. But I don’t deserve to have you here. Shouldn’t have you here. Not with who I am, and tonight was proof of that.”
“You walked right into a gunfight to protect us.”
Misery twisted into his expression. “That gunfight was because of me. I could have gotten you all killed.”
The last word hitched. Like it was almost impossible for him to expel it.