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)
You know, so I could do a little recon. Scope the man out.
Too bad I’d never gotten a peek at him, but man oh man, was I scoping him out now.
His back rippled and undulated with strength beneath his fitted white tee, all thick, corded muscle, and his jeans were worn and snug and conjured imprudent visions I had no business contemplating.
You will not ogle Cash Cunningham. You will not ogle Cash Cunningham, I chanted to myself. A frown carved my brow when the man shifted for a beat to glare at me from over his shoulder.
As if he heard me say it aloud.
I ducked my head to shield myself from the ferocity firing back.
Crappity crap.
Had I actually let that thought go? I sure hoped not. The last thing I needed was to complicate the most complicated situation. I couldn’t feel things I would only be a fool to feel. Couldn’t revisit old feelings that I’d spent way too much time wondering if they were true. If I’d only imagined that quick blip in time when I thought…
I clamped down on that train of thought.
The past didn’t matter. The only thing that did were my children. I couldn’t get distracted. I needed to be watching my back and not the muscle in Cash’s.
Returning forward, he kept climbing the hill as if it were nothing and the rest of us weren’t struggling to keep up. I should have been hitting the gym to prepare for this.
But I doubted there was anything I could have done to actually prepare myself for coming face to face with him.
So freaking gorgeous with this broken demeanor that I didn’t recognize at all.
Dark and brooding.
Anger and this mile-high wall that he’d constructed around himself.
God.
I knew the devastation he suffered.
But this?
How many nights had I lain awake wondering how he was? Wondering where he’d gone and who he’d become?
I’d assumed it was bad.
That he blamed himself.
But it seemed much worse than I could have anticipated. Not when he’d been so vibrant and sweet and free. It’d been difficult to picture him separate from that.
Seeing him in real life made it clear he’d succumbed to his demons.
A breeze rustled through, and on it, a shiver crawled my flesh. Fear clawing through my spirit as I thought of the reason that I had come here. That sense that I was forever being watched slicking like dread through my veins and sending nausea coiling in my stomach.
I needed to remember my demons were right there, too, waiting to catch up to me. I couldn’t be complacent and distracted. I needed to remember this wasn’t close to being about me.
“Are we even there yet? My wegs are ti-wed,” Eva whined. She staggered along the trail in front of me like she was going to collapse.
My sweet little drama queen.
“Almost, I think,” I told her, keeping my voice as bright as I could.
“We can do it!” Colin shouted, his backpack bouncing on his back as he scurried behind Cash, the dog named Duke scampering along at my son’s side.
“No way, we can’t,” Eva bemoaned.
“We can’t be babies, Eva,” Addy scolded. “We have to be brave, remember?”
It’s what I’d been drilling into them.
We have to be brave.
Of course, I never mentioned the you can’t be babies part, but Addy never hesitated to add her own spin on things.
But Addy’s championing did nothing because Eva plopped down onto her butt right in the middle of the path. “I am poops.”
I breathed out a sigh of frustration, then I sucked it up because I could do this. Whatever it took.
I slung the two bags I was carrying higher over my shoulders and bent down to pick her up under the arms. “Okay, sweet girl. Up you go.”
A groan left me as I tried to hitch her to my hip and balance everything else.
But the sole of my flip-flops, which turned out to be a really terrible choice for hiking through the mountains, slipped on a loose patch of dirt. It sent me slipping to the side and Eva scrambling to cling to my neck. “Eek! I falling, Mommy!”
I scrambled to readjust my hold while a heavy duffel slid down my opposite arm. “Hold onto Mommy’s neck,” I wheezed.
“Don’t wowwy, Mommy. I got you.” She beamed as she squeezed me tight, showing me all her tiny, gapped teeth.
My chest expanded.
This…this was why I’d sacrifice it all.
Somehow, I managed to right myself, hiking her higher and sucking in a deep breath, then that breath was getting ripped right back out of my lungs when I realized Cash was suddenly standing right there, a foot away. “Give her to me.”
It was gruff and curt and hard, as if our mere existences put him out.
“I have her.” My arms trembled with the weight.
Great. I was getting defensive now? When I was the one who was begging him for mercy?