Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
“She needs to learn that not everything is easy. That sometimes we have to wait. That sometimes things are hard and she’s not always going to get her way.”
“I’m sure life is going to teach her that lesson just fine.” His teeth grated when he said it.
I got stuck there, by the pain that suddenly roiled in those gold-fired eyes, a dam opening and something I was sure he normally kept hidden gushing out.
I wondered if he could see to the depths of mine.
If it was real. This understanding that passed between us.
The truth that I would do anything to protect my daughter from all those things. From the pain and the wounds and the hurts, thinking that maybe I could prepare her for them, and when she understood they were coming, they might not sting so bad.
Or maybe I somehow foolishly thought if she experienced small ones, tiny knicks of disappointment, it would keep her from the gashes that cut so deep they’d never heal.
Maybe…maybe he did because he murmured, “As far as I’m concerned, we take the good when it’s presented to us because there’s going to be plenty of bad shit to come along. So how about you let me do the simple job of taking this couch inside your house, then you and your kid can snuggle up on it and watch a show tonight.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t speak.
I nearly fell on my ass when he suddenly took a step back, like whatever tether had stretched between us had been holding me up and it’d just snapped.
Then that smirk was back in full force. “Unless you want me to hang out for a bit, and once the two of them go to sleep, you can snuggle up on it with me.”
There he was.
The player I knew him to be.
Careless and only out for one thing.
I scoffed around the chaffing at the edges of my heart. “You know that’s not going to happen.”
He shrugged, all kinds of casual as he went back to the last boxes remaining on the couch. “Suit yourself. Just was checking to see if you’d decided to take a little of the good when it’s presented to you.”
“You’re awful sure of yourself,” I gritted out.
He came my way with a stack of boxes in his hands, and he leaned in close to my ear. “Oh, darlin’, you can be sure it’d be good.”
Chills skated down my spine and lifted across my flesh. I wanted to be sick at the reaction.
His chuckle was dry as he wound around me and jumped down from the back of the truck, still balancing four boxes and slanting me one of those looks that shivered through my insides.
“And why don’t we drop that whole Mr. Cooper bit and stop pretending like you don’t know me, yeah?”
Then he turned and strode up my walkway with the boxes in hand, not bothering to look back.
I was only accepting the good when it was presented to me.
That’s what I kept telling myself as Cody Cooper brought load after load into my house.
I had to wonder if he was doing it as some kind of penance.
It was bad enough that I’d given up the fight of letting him bring in the couch, but before he’d brought it in, he’d disappeared back over to his place and returned wearing boots and pushing a hand-truck, which he’d assured me could do the work of three men, and he was going to knock this job out lickity-split, before he’d rolled out the ramp and started in like he somehow thought it was his duty.
“That man is something, isn’t he?” Lolly sat on that very couch where we’d placed it under the window and facing the wall where the TV now sat. She sipped at an iced tea as she watched Cody disappear back out the front door on what had to be about his twentieth trip.
His shirt clung to the small of his back from the sweat that slicked his skin and those jeans hugged an ass that had to be every bit as ripped as the rest of him.
He was most definitely something and every freaking thing that I couldn’t want.
I had to remember that.
Even having him here sparked with betrayal.
Still, there was a gratitude that kept threatening to rupture through the barriers I was struggling to keep intact.
I scowled at my meddling grandmother. “And that man gave up his whole evening thanks to you.”
I still wasn’t letting on that I knew him. Lolly had to remain in the dark or else she was really going to start needling her nose into places that I couldn’t let her go.
She waved an errant hand in the air. “Oh, he’s happy to do it.”
My gaze narrowed. “And you know this how?”
“All the whistling he’s doing and the skip to his step is proof of that. Not to mention he can’t wipe that smile from his face every time he looks at you.”