Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 113617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 568(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 568(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 379(@300wpm)
Then he kept giving her shit.
“Love your girls but you need to have a sit down with them.”
She turned her head back his way and caught his eyes. “Why?”
“I like my house the way it is. I don’t need them tearing it apart on a fight of whose name is attached to my guest room.”
Her lips curved up.
“Though,” he went on, “good to see they could make up and end up sharing it.”
“Daughter lesson number one, Bowie,” she started. “When they fight, you let them fight, because they always make up and do it by sharing a bed, talking and giggling all night, which was what they did last night. Or braiding each other’s hair. Though Chloe has never allowed a braid to be plaited into her hair. She taught Sasha to use the straighteners when Sasha was seven, much to her mother’s consternation, considering Sasha burned her fingers. But I think this time in your house is the longest I’ve known where Sasha didn’t have braids in her hair somewhere.”
He grinned and asked, “Can I kiss you?”
“My mouth feels like a cesspool so, absolutely not.”
He grinned bigger and said, “Since their bodies can process alcohol seventy times faster than a mature adult, they’re all downstairs, being bossed by Chloe who’s making crêpes to order.”
“You’re talking about food again, Bowie.”
He ignored her. “And they wanna head over to Goldwater Lake and dink around. I take it you’re not up for that?”
“I am not missing a second of family time when we have both your boys and two of my three children in this house.”
God, he loved this woman.
“However,” she continued, “if I should need to take a personal break in order to vacate my stomach in a bush, none of you are allowed to share Imogen Swan does something as base as vomiting. I’ll text Mary to have your NDAs sent to your phones. You can sign them online.”
He burst out laughing.
But she was correct.
They had the kids, including the boys, for another two days.
Sul and Gage had fixed it with their professors to miss class on Monday (this meant Sully actually fixed it, and Gage was probably going to ditch) and neither had class until late on Tuesday.
So his sons were leaving at oh-dark-hundred Tuesday morning so Gage could get Sully to Sky Harbor to catch his flight, and then he’d drive down to Tucson.
Knowing this, and displaying an alarming competitive streak they had to have inherited from their father, Chloe and Sasha were in for that haul in order for them both to lavish attention, affection and their very different, but both endearing, personalities on Duncan and his sons.
In other words, he was looking forward to what would undoubtedly be a great two days.
“Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll rally,” Genny said.
“Take your time, babe. Goldwater isn’t going anywhere.”
He said this while her phone rang.
He looked to the nightstand and then told her, “It’s Matt.”
“Can you give it to me, please?”
He unhooked it from her charger and handed it to her.
He also intended to move so she had time with her son, but he didn’t when her hand darted out and her fingers wrapped around his wrist.
“Hello, darling,” she greeted, pushing up a little in bed. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m good. Are you?” Pause and, “I know, but desperate times.” Another pause and in a sharper tone, “I understand that, Matthew, but to deliberately put a very fine point on it, I believe your father’s debt is paid with losing his wife and having his son practically freeze him out of his life. Something, I would encourage you, this before begging you, to think very long and hard about ending.”
She was staring at Duncan with an expression that warred between annoyed and worried.
She spoke again.
“I’m not defending him. I’m reminding you he’s human and I’m telling you I love you very much. And since I do, I do not want there to be a time, and it will come, Matt, where you mess up, and you do it huge, and you hurt someone, that you look back with deep regret at the time you lost with your father when you were not allowing him to be something he cannot possibly stop being. Human.”
Oh yeah.
He loved this woman.
Duncan reached out and stroked her jaw.
She turned her head into his touch.
“Yes, fine,” she said. “Yes.” A pause. “Yes, I know, and no, I’m not mad. I want you to be happy. And yes, Sasha shouldn’t have told me. But Matthew, you know better than that. If you have something you want to keep a secret, you tell Chloe. She’ll take it to her grave. You don’t tell Sasha. She’ll hold it quiet for precisely as long as it takes her to design the billboard she’ll put up, broadcasting it.”
Duncan chuckled.
Her worry faded as she watched him do it.