Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“Oh Jesus,” he groaned when she started making her way to him. “Fucking cutest thing in the world.”
I snorted and laughed when he dropped to his ass and then crossed his legs.
Leaning forward, he scooped her up the instant she was within reach and then covered her with kisses.
His shirt became soaked with applesauce, but he didn’t seem to care.
Emily had changed a lot in the last two months. She’d gotten her first tooth a couple of weeks prior.
She’d also gotten her first major boo-boo that had required a trip to the ER.
An ER visit where she was treated for a laceration over her right eye.
And that had been my fault.
I’d left her on the couch like I’d done so many times before, but instead of staying there, she’d fallen off in her search for me, and had cut her head open on the coffee table.
I’d been promised by not just the ER docs, but also by the other ladies in the club that had children that accidents happened. Frequently.
She’d also finally started to sleep through the night and eat solid foods.
I’d stopped breast-feeding, and we’d switched over to only formula in hopes that she would stop throwing up so much.
Which she did.
And she, as did my life in general, became a whole lot sweeter with less vomit.
Apple had also done a lot of changing.
He’d continued his trips to his psychologist to help him with the guilt and pain he suffered, even now.
And he got a lot better. I could definitely see a change in him, that was for sure.
He hadn’t told them his real reasons for being there, only touched on the fact that his friend had died, but he’d told them all that he could, and they’d been able to help him come to terms with a few things.
He’d also stopped working so much overtime as a game warden when he could. When hunting season rolled around two weeks ago, I’d lost him again. And I was sure that would happen every hunting season. But a plus was that his father had completely closed his wood cutting business.
Now Apple only cut wood for fun in his spare time.
And I was one happy person.
My seizures, although still present, were back to my normal. Which meant every once in a while I would space out for about thirty seconds, and then I would snap back.
I hadn’t had one more bad seizure since I’d been placed on the lowest dose of anti-seizure medication available.
And I was fucking ecstatic about that.
Life was good.
“So tell me what happened with the douche canoe that kidnapped you,” Ridley ordered.
I looked up at Apple, then to Emily.
“I’m going to go give Emily a bath while you boys talk,” I said softly, picking Emily from Ridley’s arms and hurrying away. “And get ready to go to lunch! I’m hungry!”
I didn’t wait for a reply.
It wasn’t that I was embarrassed by what I did to Jake.
In fact, I was okay with it. Happy, in fact.
That day two months ago had been terrible.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to live or die and that had a way about bringing out the worst in a person.
What I’d experienced with Jake was not nice. It was not pretty, and to be honest, it haunted my nightmares.
Every night my dream would be the same.
I’d wake up after passing out from him covering my mouth to being in a chair. A chair that I was not tied down to or anything.
I looked around at the room, taking in the knives on the kitchen counter, as well as the baseball bat that was leaning against the wall in the corner behind the door.
Once I was sure my legs would hold me, I stood up and walked carefully to the bat.
A knife was nice and all, but that would put me too close to the person that’d taken me, and I needed distance.
Once the solid weight was in my hand, I looked around at the room I was in.
The house I was in was only a single open room with large beams acting as support. It looked like it’d recently been remodeled to look like this, because the drywall was still exposed over most of the walls and there were tools all over the place.
My next step was to look outside and, once there, I saw the same man that I’d seen in the elevator earlier.
“What the hell is going on?” I whispered, running across the room to the closed door.
I waited there, watching him do something outside on the porch, for what felt like hours but was likely only minutes.
Then he turned. There was something that looked like plastic bags and tape in his hand, as he reached for the doorknob.
The moment he opened the door and stepped inside, I’d come up at his back and slammed the bat upside his head.