Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
I still couldn’t quite believe that I was here like this. Sharing another evening with these amazing people who’d weaved themselves so deeply inside me there was no chance I could ever get them out.
Treating me as if they…as if they just expected me to be there. As if I belonged.
“But you aren’t going to be doing that tonight, are you?” River said in that low voice.
“Nope. Like my Miss Charleigh said, I got to have my energy to stay up the whole night tomorrow. We’re gonna party until the sun comes up.”
I choked on a laugh as I glanced back at River whose expression had shifted to pure exasperation. Not sure what to do with the precious child who was definitely a little whip.
We hit the landing, and Nolan led me into his bedroom. Releasing me, he went sailing for his bed. He planted his hands on the edge of the mattress and propelled himself into the air.
His legs flailed, and half his body bent to the side as he attempted the flip that was basically him toppling and crashing onto the middle of his bed.
“Oomph,” he cried when he landed on his back. “That was definitely not an eleven. But if you don’t make it, you gotta try and try again, right, Dad?”
He grinned at River who hovered in the doorway. The man didn’t have time to answer before Nolan was hopping up onto his knees, words spewing from his mouth. “That was another one of my dad’s smart ideas. If you want something and you fail, you just gotta try, and try again until you get it.”
“First person who ever said it.” River’s tone was dry.
I pressed my fingers to my lips as if it might be able to stop the amusement that kept tumbling out.
“Well, it is really good advice,” I told him as I peered back at him. His storm-cloud eyes were different tonight.
The grays lapping soft within the darkness that they always held.
Nolan plopped onto his butt and bounced off the side of the bed before he was on his knees in front of a bookcase that sat on his wall. “What’s your favorite, Miss Charleigh? Dragons or fairies?”
“Um…dragons.”
“What? You got the same favorite as me?” Nolan jumped onto his feet, waving a book over his head. “I got a really good one for us!”
He scrambled back onto his bed.
“Sit right there.” He pointed to a spot on the floor beside his bed.
I climbed onto my knees. “How’s this?”
“I think it’s pretty good,” he said with a shrug, and then he tossed open the first page and started speeding through the book. Clearly, he’d memorized every word.
River remained hovering just inside the door, leaning against the wall as he watched his son read me a story.
I was enraptured by the child’s sweet voice. The tinkling lilt. The way he dipped his voice when the villain came on the scene. The giggles. His expression that enthused each spot where he was supposed to be surprised, even though there was no question he had heard this story a hundred times.
“The end! What did you think?”
“I think it was my favorite story I’ve ever heard.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. Because I had the best storyteller reading it to me.”
He was on his knees in a flash, throwing his arms around my neck. He squeezed so tight that I could hardly breathe, his cheek smooshed against mine.
“Because you love me as much as I love you?”
The cavern inside me trembled. As if it were threatening to cave in, and all the brittle boulders inside were getting ready to dislodge and tumble into the pit. As if the crater stood a chance of being filled.
“I do, Nolan. I love you as much as you love me.”
More, I was sure, because I doubted a child could feel the magnitude of what I felt right then. The way I wanted to become a part of something so brilliant and right.
“That’s good because family is who we love most, remember?” He leaned back, his shining blue eyes searching my face to make sure I understood the importance of what he was saying.
Reaching out, I touched his cheek because I understood it more than he could ever comprehend or imagine. “I remember.”
“Guess you’re pretty smart too.”
He said it casually as he plopped back onto his butt, shoving back his covers so he could get under them. He wiggled around as I drew them up to his chest.
He wore a matching pair of children’s pajamas—pants with a short-sleeved tee with moons and stars all over them. He reached up again to hug me, and it was the first time I noticed the birthmark on the inside of his left arm.
A frown curved my brow, and I lifted my hand so I could tremble my fingers over it. Nostalgia whispered through, my mind blinking through memories I’d done my best to keep at bay.