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)
“Are we here? This is where Maci lives?” Addy asked.
“I want to pway. Wet’s go, Gwumpy Giant!” Eva pushed at the straps of her car seat.
All while I was pummeled with a million things.
Gratitude that Cash would bring us here. That he would introduce me and my children to the people who had come to mean the most to him. That he had agreed. That he’d given me basically everything when I had nothing to offer in return.
It was all mixed with a deep-seated grief at what all of this represented.
The fact that I was asking Cash to take my babies on if I no longer had the capacity to do it.
The truth that these people would be the ones my children would come to know if something were to befall me, while I knew absolutely nothing about them.
The mere scraps of information I had was what Cash had offered. That he’d met them when he left West Virginia for LA. When he’d been changed somehow, hardened into this man that I now knew.
A man who claimed he had committed horrible acts without giving me any details as to why. No true view into who he was.
I imagined those he called his brothers to be every bit as menacing as him.
“You don’t need to be nervous,” Cash grumbled from the side. “These are the kindest, most welcoming people you’ll ever meet. They accept you for the good things that you are and nothing else.”
Cash stared over at me as he said it. As if he were wondering why that had been extended to him. The man believing he had no good thing left and no beautiful thing to bestow.
Even with all that brutality and savagery he wore like a brand, when I looked at him, that was all that I saw.
Goodness.
Beauty.
“You can’t expect me not to be.” I tried to force lightness into my voice. “I have to compete with all of them for the title of your best friend.”
Cash smiled. Smiled a smile I hadn’t seen in so long.
One that was playful and sweet.
Those hazel eyes glinted and danced beneath the light.
Only his voice darkened into something that could only be considered greed as he leaned over the console toward me. “You think anyone could compare to you, Little Wallflower?”
The air wheezed from my lungs, and he stayed there for a beat before he tossed open the door and climbed from his seat. “Come on, we’d better get inside.”
Cash swung open the rear door. Colin had already unbuckled and scrambled out. Addy was right behind him.
I blew out a strained breath, trying to prepare myself for whatever was ahead of me, before I forced myself to get out and go to Eva’s door.
She reached for me with her arms outstretched but her shoulders still pinned to the seat. “I get to go pway, Mommy! Hurry!”
Softness washed through my spirit, and I quickly worked through her buckles and pulled my baby into my arms.
Then confusion was slamming me all over again when Cash suddenly rounded the back of the SUV and stepped up to my side.
His presence swarmed.
His big body a fortress.
A shield.
A sanctuary.
He set a gentle hand on the small of my back.
Chills raced up my spine.
What was he doing?
I could almost feel him trembling. His own nerves vibrating through his body. “Don’t normally come here like this, Daisy.”
Uncertainty pinched my brow. “I thought you said they get together every Sunday?”
“They do, but I don’t normally attend. I keep my distance the best I can.”
It hit me then.
Because he didn’t feel like he truly belonged. Didn’t feel he was worthy to be in their mix.
Or maybe he was terrified of loving again.
Of loving how deeply he once had.
The scars driven so deep he was afraid of ever facing a repeat of something so awful.
And he was here.
With me.
With my children.
“Thank you for bringing us here,” I whispered.
“Fank you, Mr. Big Giant.” Held in my arms, Eva beamed up at him.
Heavy emotion rolled through his being, and he dipped his chin at her. “You’re welcome, Eva. Think this is going to be a good day.”
Then he began to guide me toward the house where Addy and Colin impatiently waited at the top of the steps.
“We’re gonna be late!” Addy shouted. She swayed back and forth, sending her floral sundress billowing around her. Her dark hair was braided and pinned up on her head.
Her face so full of life and none of the fear she’d quietly carried over the weeks before we came here.
Colin had been more unaware of it, his inquisitiveness never waning and that grin never fading.
And my little Eva. She squirmed and hummed with uncontained excitement.
“Here, let me take her,” Cash grunted, extending those massive, tattooed arms as if it were his job.
She didn’t hesitate to jump into them as we started up the steps. A giggle ripped out of her as he swung her onto his hip.