Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
“What do you think?”
I groaned. “Why do you call me ‘Buddy’? I’ve never heard you call Am that, or anybody else.”
His eyebrows crept up his forehead at the same time as his mouth stretched into an even more rare supermoon of a smile. “You don’t know?”
“Am I supposed to?”
“I thought you would,” he replied cryptically, still grinning.
I shook my head. “No idea. I used to think you called me ‘angel’ because you thought that was my name, but now I know you just . . . whatever.”
Rhodes chuckled, laying a hand on top of the table, the tips of his fingers millimeters from the lace trim of my green underwear. Those gray eyes were totally hung up on them for a moment before he glanced back at me, color rising along his throat as he said, “Because you are one.”
My mouth gaped, and I was pretty sure I was just staring up at him blankly.
One side of his mouth rose a little higher. “Why do you look surprised? You’ve got the sweetest, kindest heart, Buddy. It wouldn’t matter what you looked like, you’d still be my angel.”
His angel?
Was my chin quivering?
Was that my heart losing its identity for a new one?
Did Rhodes literally just say the nicest thing anyone had ever said about me?
His expression was so fond, so open, all I could do was gape at him as he looked down at me. “You remind me of Buddy the Elf. You’re always smiling. Always trying to make things better. I thought for sure you would get it,” he explained.
My chin was quivering.
And the softest smile swept over his hard face. “Don’t tear up. We have to talk. Have you seen the forecast?”
I blinked and tried to focus, wrapping up that explanation and setting it beside my heart because otherwise I was about to get naked right then and there. “The forecast?” I croaked, trying to think. “You mean because of the storm?”
He nodded, apparently over paying me any more compliments that could make me feel like maybe, just maybe . . . he might love me.
Because the truth was, I was totally in love with him.
Just looking at him made me happy. Being close to him made me feel calm. Safe. There was nothing about this man that was hesitant or withdrawn. He was quiet, yeah, but it had nothing to do with him holding parts of himself back. I loved how serious he was. How deep his thoughts and actions went.
No one in my life, other than my mom, had made me feel the way he did. Like I could trust them completely. And it was when I’d accepted that—seen it for what it was—that I’d understood the depth of my feelings.
I was in love with him.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, making sure my mouth was closed and scrubbing under my eyes even though I was pretty sure no tears had actually come out. They’d just hung out right at the rim. “Clara told me, and I looked too when I got home.”
He dipped that chin with its cute cleft. “Your flight is supposed to leave early, isn’t it?”
I confirmed it was, swallowing hard once to make sure I was keeping it together and not blubbering—much less telling him that I was stupid in love with him.
“It’s supposed to drop ten to twelve overnight,” he kept talking, his words careful.
“The plane is supposed to leave at six.”
He didn’t say anything, but those hard, blunt fingers went to my jaw, touching from right behind my ear to the center of my chin and back.
“You think it’s going to get canceled?” I managed to ask, mostly to distract him so that hopefully he’d keep touching my face. He hadn’t been shy about touching my shoulders or my wrist. Sometimes he’d touch my fingers, and I’d swear it was better than anything I did to myself at night in bed.
He did—keep up his touching, that was. “I think you should be ready for the possibility it will,” he answered quietly, his lids heavy over his eyes.
“Oh, that would suck, but it’s not like I can do anything about it if it happens. I have—”
Those gray eyes met mine, and he dropped into a crouch at my side, bringing that handsome face and beautiful hair to basically eye level with me. “Come stay at the house with us.”
“Tonight?” I pretty much croaked.
The hand that had been on my throat for all of thirty seconds landed on my thigh. “I’ll drive you in the morning if your flight is still on. You won’t have to walk back and forth across the driveway,” he said, like it was a half-mile walk from the garage apartment to his house.
My own mouth twitched. “Sure.”
Rhodes stood and set that same palm on top of my shoulder. “Want to come over now? I’ll help you carry your things.”