Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 128801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
My attention dropped to the broken clock on his chest. The fractured hands stuck at five o’ four. I’d always thought it’d marked the moment he’d lost Amelia.
I’d witnessed his pain that day.
I’d thought he’d been devastated over Amelia’s death.
I’d thought he’d lost the one he’d been in love with.
He suddenly gripped my hand and spread my palm over the tattoo, pressing it hard, like his soul was desperate to tell me something but his tongue was locked.
“Give me time to make it right.”
Alarms were going off somewhere in my mind. They should have been deafening, but it was only faint, blotted out by the sincerity of his eyes.
“Okay,” I agreed, and he sighed then leaned forward and kissed me hard.
Kissed me into a puddle, until I was on my back on the bed and his hand was smoothing up the sheet, over my hip and up my side, though he paused when he was pressing his palm over my trembling stomach.
He edged back and looked down at me. “I nearly lost my mind when I found out you were pregnant. Destroyed me to think of you with somebody else.”
It wasn’t regret that I felt. It was the vestiges of the pain that had driven me that night.
How I’d felt so raw, and the only thing I could do was seek some kind of comfort. Unfortunately, it’d only left me feeling worse. Like I’d used myself up, trying to cover what I really felt with something else.
“Watching you with other women destroyed me, too.”
Remorse dimmed his eyes, and he brushed his thumb under the hollow of my eye. “I did my best to put as much space and history between us. Thinking one day, it would finally kill what I really felt for you. That one day I’d look at you and we’d really just be friends. But I don’t think that’s even possible, Dakota. There’s no chance of not feeling this.”
He curled his fingers deeper into my stomach. Clinging to me. Like he was terrified I might get away.
“Why don’t we know anything about Kayden’s father?” he pressed.
I knew this would be coming. Keeping that story a secret was a choice I’d made. I hadn’t wanted anyone else to have it, only because there was no chance anyone else would understand. But I wanted Ryder to hold it now. “I was blinded by how hurt I was that evening, Ryder, when I came to you and admitted how I felt, and you didn’t return it.”
My tongue stroked over my bottom lip. “I just…drove. For hours. Away. I ended up in Poplar at this crowded bar. I couldn’t be here in this town around anyone I knew, but I also felt like I couldn’t be alone. I met some random guy there. He was attractive, I guess, though I don’t know that I really even processed that. But he smiled at me, talked to me, and in the middle of my pain, it made me feel something other than the misery over you. So I had sex with him in his truck out in the parking lot. I never mentioned him because I barely caught his name.”
Regret dimmed those dark eyes, and I hesitated beneath the weight before I forced myself to continue. “Trey. We didn’t exchange numbers or anything. It wasn’t like that for either of us. We were both looking for something to make us feel good for a little while.”
Inhaling, I pressed on through the torment seeping out of Ryder. “When I found out I was pregnant, I went back to the bar where I’d met him. A bunch of times. I didn’t know if I hoped to find him or hoped that I wouldn’t, but I guessed in the end, I was relieved when I never found him. Thankful he’d been my comfort that once, and he’d left me with this little gift that I never anticipated.”
It’d been reckless, I knew.
But sometimes things worked out the way they were supposed to.
“I don’t regret it,” I admitted.
Affection slipped through Ryder’s expression, and a tender smile edged his mouth as he hovered over me and brushed back the hair from my face. “How could you regret that tiny tornado?”
“I couldn’t.”
Every part of Ryder billowed with intensity. “I love him, too. Love him with everything I’ve got.”
“I know that,” I told him.
It was the truth.
I’d always seen Ryder’s love for Kayden. I’d just missed out on what that love had really meant for me.
“So, it’s the three of us now.” He tipped up my chin with his index finger, staring down at me. A promise blazed in those midnight eyes.
“Is that what this is, Ryder?” I could barely speak.
“I told you that I’m fighting for this family. For you and Kayden. For us.”
Warmth spread, expanding my heart. I reached up and scratched my nails through the stubble on his jaw. “I always prayed you wouldn’t forget us.”