Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
The thought banished the last of the ecstasy still shivering across her skin.
Pike was insanely wealthy, beloved by half the country, and had the best of everything at his disposal. That included the best child custody lawyers, who would have no qualms using Tulsi’s years of deception to prove she was an unfit mother. She had lied to keep Pike from his little girl and stolen six years of Clem’s childhood from her daddy. It would be all too easy for the court to rule in his favor. She could see it all playing out now—the baseball star vs. the selfish, small-town nobody in a high profile court case that would be splashed across every trashy magazine in the country.
She would be crucified. She might even deserve to be crucified—she’d been so wrong about Pike, she could see that now—but it didn’t matter. She couldn’t lose Clementine. Clem was her world and she was Clem’s. Her daughter was precocious and intelligent, but she was still just a little girl who needed her mother. Tulsi was the only one who could calm Clem down when she was having one of her temper tantrums, the only one who understood how hard it was for a kid like Clem, who was so ahead of the curve and so full of questions, to fit in with her peers.
Tulsi had been through every bump in the road with her daughter—from the long newborn nights when Clem wailed for hours with colic to the broken wrist when four-year-old Clem made her own flying machine to launch off the chicken coup. It was Tulsi who’d been there for the lonely days at the beginning of kindergarten—as Clem struggled to find friends and fit in with children who hadn’t been reading since they were three and hadn’t spent hours staring up at the night sky, trying to wrap their minds around the idea of space stretching on forever. No one else knew Clem the way she did, and no one was more committed to making sure her daughter grew up feeling loved, understood, and accepted for the person she was—flaws and all.
They’d made it almost seven years without a father figure in the picture and were doing just fine. Clem was happy and well-adjusted and Tulsi intended to do whatever it took to keep her daughter’s life drama free—even if it meant giving up on this.
This…everything that she found in Pike’s arms.
“Say something, Tulsi,” Pike whispered. “Please. At least look at me. Give me a clue what’s going on in that head of yours.”
Tulsi’s eyes opened and the hard words began to form, but before she could speak another voice cut through the silence of the woods.
“Pike, where are you?” Mia called, sounding too close for comfort. “Pike! Tulsi?”
Pike cursed as he scrambled off of Tulsi, hitching up his jeans as he reached for her discarded clothes. Pulse racing, Tulsi splashed away the stickiness on her stomach, wiggled into her underpants, and had just finished buttoning her jeans and tugging her tank top back into place when Mia appeared at the top of the bank.
“There you two are.” Mia frowned as her eyes flicked from Pike, who had just finished rescuing his hat from where it had floated downstream, to Tulsi and back again. “Didn’t you hear me calling?”
“Guess not,” Pike said innocently. “Sound doesn’t carry too well around here. What’s up?”
“I was worried,” Mia said, her brows still drawn together. “Everyone else is already back, but you two were missing. I thought maybe your knee was giving you trouble.”
“No, I’m good,” he said, glancing Tulsi’s way. “Tulsi and I were just catching up.”
“Pike was telling me I should quit breaking horses for Daddy.” Tulsi sat down on the rocks and began pulling on her socks and boots, past ready to make her getaway.
“He’s right.” Mia came to stand beside her, sending dirt skittering down the steep bank as she moved. “I’ve been saying that for months. Don’t suppose he got through to you, did he?”
Tulsi shook her head, keeping her eyes on her feet as she tugged on her boots. “Nope. I told him it was none of his business, thank you very much. My life is my life.”
“You’re getting sassy in your old age,” Mia said with a laugh. “Isn’t she, Pike?”
“She was always sassy,” Pike said, his tone far too intimate for Tulsi’s liking. The last thing she needed was for Mia to start suspecting that she and Pike had a history. She’d kept her affair with Mia’s brother a secret for years and she intended to go right on keeping it. Nothing good could come from her best friend learning the truth.
“Only with family.” Tulsi came to her feet and forced a smile. “It’s easy to tell your big brother to mind his own business.” She looped her arm through Mia’s. “I’m sorry, but I went wading instead of scavenger hunting. I hope you’re not mad.”