Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 447(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89465 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 447(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Maybe I should’ve started with a kiss the minute I hired her. Then maybe it wouldn’t have the lasting affect it’s had.
“You look nice,” I tell her, trying to divert her attention from the possessive way I growled at her.
“This old thing?” she says, grabbing the side and pulling it from her body.
I swear her legs are the smoothest things I’ve ever seen, and the crooked smile on her lips isn’t fooling me. But hell, it’s my fault that I can’t help where my mind races to, no matter if it seems that’s what she wanted in the first place.
It’s the same damn dress she was wearing for the meeting at The Brew and Chew. Even the sheriff dropped his eyes to her ass after he opened the door for her and let her enter first. I about came out of my seat, thinking it was disrespectful, but I got lost in the way she glared at me, something akin to hatred in her eyes before she tried to leave.
My fingers ache to run up the back of her calf and disappear under the hemline of that pretty, floral print dress.
“I’m going to meet Adalynn for a drink to celebrate the new freeze dryer she had delivered earlier in the week.”
Even if we had more than one bar in town, I know exactly where Adalynn would be at about eight o’clock tonight. That would be sitting at the pub table in the corner, sipping a diet soda and waiting for Cash to make his rounds. If he wasn’t on shift, then she’d be at her home or his house watching a movie marathon of sorts on opposite ends of the same sofa with tension you could cut the only thing between them.
“Cash is on shift tonight, huh?”
She’s quick to smile, but then she hides it.
“It’s a celebration,” she reiterates. “And I’m going to use that time to beg for freeze-dried Skittles while sipping on a daiquiri.”
“Walker doesn’t make frozen drinks,” I say offhandedly.
“Then I’ll drink shots,” she argues.
A horn blares outside, and a sense of relief hits me that she won’t be driving. It’s not very often that Adalynn indulges in a drink. As the owner of Fondante’s Inferno, the local bakery, she has to be up early to get ready for the breakfast crowd that’s obsessed with her cupcakes. It doesn’t leave much room for hangovers and next-day regret.
“Maybe I’ll see you there,” I say as she opens the front door.
It’s not unusual that she didn’t announce her plans to me. Those aren’t the types of conversations we’ve had over the last two weeks that she’s worked for me. We discuss the boys, and on occasion, she requests I grab things from the store so she doesn’t have to load up the boys and get them in and out in the heat. They say it doesn’t bother them, but they’re crankier just like everyone else later in the afternoon with this heat wave we’ve been having.
Madison lifts her arm over her head and gives me a little wave before disappearing outside and closing the door behind her.
Agitation settles inside of me. Even though I know I have no right to that kind of emotion, it doesn’t stop it from seeping inside of me.
“We’re ready, Daddy!” Cale says, carefully coming down the stairs, his little suitcase bouncing with each step it hits as he pulls it behind him.
“Me too!” Cole says, seeing his brother is blocking this side of the staircase so he runs to the other side and beats his brother to the landing.
“Where are your clothes?” I ask Cole.
He scrunches his nose at me. “We wear the same size, remember?”
He points his finger back and forth between himself and his twin.
“But you can’t wear the same thing at the same time,” I remind him, one of the more common phrases I find myself saying around these two. “Last time you went to Papaw’s, you didn’t have clothes.”
“He took my clothes!” Cale yells, old hurt in his voice.
Dad called, fit to be tied, because they were going after each other because Cole took Cale’s clothes.
“Go upstairs and pack your own suitcase. You need—”
“Pajamas, and something to wear tomorrow including underwear. And don’t bother bringing your swim trunks because Papaw isn’t taking you swimming no matter how much you beg,” he says as he runs toward the staircase, his mocking verbatim of what I told them twenty minutes ago.
I blow a mildly frustrated breath out before smiling down at Cale.
He blinks up at me, and I can tell by the way he quickly darts his eyes away that he’s feeling guilty about something.
“Is there something you need to tell me?”
He shakes his head, his lips forming a flat line.
“Can you bring some apple juice with us to Papaw’s house? He doesn’t ever have anything to drink but water or that stinky, thick milk.”