Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 74898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
“You okay, girl?” Ellen asked.
I nodded.
“Would you like to meet the rest of the girl squad?” she asked. “They’re all in the family room, or they would’ve been out here to greet you by now.”
No, no I did not. Because doing that would require my leaving this spot, and I liked this spot. The man, Ghost, was like a wall of fire at my back. Even though he wasn’t touching me, I could feel his heat practically seeping into me.
“How’s work going for you?” I heard asked behind me.
“Good and bad,” came Ghost’s reply.
I froze at that raspy voice.
“Mina?”
I was frozen in between leaving and staying, and I couldn’t get my feet to move.
I turned to look over my shoulder at the man at my back and was unsurprised to find his eyes on me.
What was it about this man that made me act like this?
Ellen touched my arm, and the connection between us was severed.
I took a step away from Ghost. Then another, and another, until I was all the way across the room.
“Where to?” I asked breathlessly.
***
Ghost
I watched her go, feeling like a piece of my heart was walking away from me.
“You’re going to either have her back in a matter of days, or you’re going to have her so mad at you that everyone within a two-mile radius will hear everything that has ever happened between the two of y’all when she starts screaming it at you because she’s so pissed off at you,” Sean pointed out helpfully.
I turned my glare to him.
My heart wasn’t beating right. It felt like it was skipping way too many beats to be considered safe.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I told him.
Sean grinned.
“So, Sugar Girl?” Sean teased.
I blew out a breath.
“Did you see her freeze when you said that to her daughter?” Sean continued.
I gritted my teeth.
“And your daughter. Man, she’s fuckin’ adorable. She looks just like you,” Sean continued. “Those eyes.”
Yeah, those eyes. Those were all mine.
I was happy that her eyes had stayed green.
“How long is this going to go on before you make a move?” Sean asked, this time really expecting an answer.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I never planned to do anything, but it’s getting harder and harder to stay away.”
My gaze turned to zero in on my daughter, who was standing across the room staring at the other kids. She was standing off to the side, silently taking everything in, and I realized that my eye color wasn’t the only thing she’d gotten.
She was watchful and observant like me, too.
Chapter 14
If you don’t have anything nice to say, say it anyway. Sometimes motherfuckers need to hear the truth.
-Ghost’s secret thoughts
Ghost
Day five of Mina and Sienna being in Mooresville
I watched her live in my house, and I knew that this would have to be taken care of quickly. I couldn’t keep doing this. I couldn’t watch her cry in my bed. Couldn’t watch her walking around looking so lost and sad. Couldn’t stay away from her another minute when all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her and never, ever let her go.
“You know, one of these days, she’s going to find you standing out here.”
I grunted.
“You’re creepy as fuck standing here, too,” Sean offered his two cents.
I’d heard the two men arrive, of course.
I just hadn’t acknowledged them because I didn’t feel like talking. Obviously, they weren’t taking my subtle hints.
“I’m standing in my home, Sean.”
“No,” he disagreed. “You’re standing in a RV. And ignoring everyone and everything so you can watch the woman that you won’t claim as your woman.”
I shot him the finger. “Fuck off.”
“Someone’s pulling up.”
My head whipped around and I saw Loki, one of my old club brothers who also thought I was dead, pulling up with his wife, and children in tow.
Oh, and Taco, Mina’s cat.
“You know, I’m not sure any of the club would ever talk about you to anyone but among themselves. It wouldn’t kill you to tell them that you’re alive.”
“No,” I agreed. “But knowing it might get them killed and that is not a risk I’m willing to take.”
And that was that.
***
Day seven of Mina and Sienna being in Mooresville
I couldn’t do this. I really, really couldn’t do this.
“Shit,” I grunted and walked up the driveway.
“Can I help?”
Mina jumped a foot and whirled like a startled cat, instantly on guard. Her eyes were wild, and her entirely too short hair spun spectacularly around her head as if she’d been in a commercial trying to sell a certain brand of shampoo that was for luxurious, sleek hair.
The cat that we’d bought together, the one that I knew didn’t like me—although dislike was too mild a word for what this cat felt for me—hissed and growled, causing us both to turn our heads and stare at the evil shit.