Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
He made a sound in his throat.
“Stopped by the station,” he said. “She’s in custody.”
She being Blakely.
“She damn well better be,” I growled, a little louder than I intended.
Taos snorted. “She’ll be there for a while. You don’t hurt a cop’s daughter, even one that’s fallen from grace.”
“Fallen from grace?” I questioned.
“Fallen from grace,” he confirmed. “He’s missed five shifts in the last month, all because he’s drunk off his ass, and tells the sergeant that. I… oh, hot damn, he’s actually calling me back. Be right back.”
He hung up on me and relief hit me twofold.
One because we were able to find Madden’s stupid ass, and two, because my girl opened her eyes.
I dropped the phone onto the bed that she took up a minuscule amount of, and then leaned over her as I said, “Hey.”
She smiled, and I looked at her beautiful white teeth that I remembered getting braces.
“Hey,” she croaked. “Who was that?”
The hopefulness in her voice…
“Taos,” I answered honestly. “We’re looking for your dad but can’t find him.”
She winced. “He went to a police seminar or something out of town. I’m sorry. I didn’t know that you were looking for him.”
I smoothed some hair out of her eyes when she tried to blow it away from her face.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You need to use the bathroom again?”
Her cute face got red at the idea of me helping her in there.
I grinned. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 16
I want to do hot girl shit, but I can’t stop doing fat girl shit.
-wineglass
SOPHIA
One week later
“I’m not taking you to your house that’s empty,” Haggard denied as he swung his truck in the opposite direction of my home.
I ground my teeth together, pissed as hell and not bothering to hide it.
“Listen,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’ve been in the hospital for a week. I’ve been there a hell of a lot longer than I ever wanted to be. All I want is my bed. My stuff. My freakin’ house!”
Haggard’s lips twitched. “You can have Clem’s room, which is practically an extension of your own house. And she’s not going to be there bothering you for the week. Neither of them will. You’ll practically have the house all to yourself.”
But I wouldn’t have it to myself, would I? He’d be there.
He’d been driving me nuts for the last week, never once leaving my side, but I knew for a fact that he was behind at work.
And I didn’t want to cause him problems. I remembered him and Trista fighting over his lack of attention, and how he needed to work, and she gave him shit for needing to.
Even worse, now he was taking me home to keep watch over me there, and I just didn’t think I could take it—being a burden.
Not because I didn’t want to be taken care of—I did—but because I was literally seconds from tearing my hair out.
I was getting all the love and attention—but not in the way I wanted.
He was treating me like his daughter.
And I damn sure didn’t want to be treated like that by him.
I wanted to be treated like a woman.
I wanted him to place his lips on my mouth, not on my forehead.
I wanted him to pull me in close to his body and hold me tight, not give me a side hug that was painfully obvious that he wanted nothing more than to be friends.
I just needed a freakin’ break from the pressure.
I needed my own house.
I needed…
“I want to go home,” I repeated stubbornly.
He sighed. “Baby…”
I shook my head, my throat swelling up.
Then I just… broke.
The tension of the last week, my dad refusing to come visit me, and even going as far as to sign up for a freakin’ week-long training program all the way across the country… paired with the pressure of having Haggard there, but not there, had done something to my soul.
And, to make matters worse, Clem had been gone the last four days because of her yearly two weeks with her mother, their mother-daughter-son vacation, leaving me completely and utterly alone. With him.
I swallowed hard, hoping to keep the tears at bay, but it was a lost cause.
Those tears weren’t staying where they belonged.
They were pouring out of my eyes.
They didn’t care that crying in front of this man would get me only pity.
Stupid freakin’ heart.
I tried to turn my head away, tried to hide the tears, but goddammit, I wasn’t a quiet crier.
I was a loud one.
I’d never been able to cry silently. No matter how hard I tried.
Which was why, inevitably, when my damn breath hitched, and a low whimper left my throat, he immediately pulled the truck over.
His worried eyes were on me when he unbuckled his seat belt and turned so that he could see my face.
He reached his hand up and cupped my cheek, careful to avoid the still swollen left eye, and said, “What is it, baby?”