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)
My heart was hardly able to hold the magnitude of my love for her.
“Mommy! You got home so fast. You gotta come play with us. I already beat my Lolly like a hundred times, and she needs your help super bad. She’s real terrible at this.”
Madison’s expression pulled in mortified disappointment.
Lolly chuckled and slanted me a knowing glance. “Little one’s too smart for me.”
“Well, then I guess Lolly and I are going to have to form a team, aren’t we?”
Lolly’s smile was soft. “We’ve always been the best kind of team.”
“That’s right,” I told her, sitting down beside her and squeezing her knee. “The best one there is.”
Maddie beamed from across the coffee table, those curls wild and her innocence stark. “Hey, I’m on your team, too. That’s gotta mean we all win, right, Mommy?”
I squeezed Lolly’s hand.
Yeah, that had to mean we all won. And I was set on the prize being this life.
TEN
HAILEY
It was a few minutes after ten that night when I was in the kitchen, unloading a few boxes.
When I’d fled to Boston three months ago, I’d furnished the small apartment I’d rented the best that I could, hoping to give Maddie any semblance of normalcy. Ripping her from the only home she’d known and dragging her across the country with only the clothes on our backs and her Princess Verona she’d been sleeping with when I’d left that night hugged to her chest.
I imagined that was when she’d formed the attachment to it, when it’d become a safety net, something she could count on always being there to give her comfort.
I’d brought all our things from that apartment with us because I didn’t want to fully upend her again, though she’d flourished while we’d lived there, the child coming alive in a way she hadn’t in Austin, as if her spirit had been tamped and tamed there, too, and that sweet spirit had only seemed to soar even higher now that we were in Colorado.
It was the right choice, coming here. I knew it all the way in my soul. The way the ground seemed to be a little more solid beneath our feet each day, even though the man next door seemed to be doing his best to disturb it.
I was still shaking from our interaction from earlier when I’d gotten home from work.
Refusing to contemplate it, I turned back to place a stack of teal-colored plates into the cupboards with the glass doors that ran above the countertop.
Affection pulled at me when I heard Lolly shuffle into the kitchen from behind, and I tossed a glance at her from over my shoulder.
“Is she asleep?” I asked.
Her smile was sly. “Out like a light…that is only after reading her favorite book fifteen times over.”
“She knows exactly how to wrap you around her finger.”
“Well, I didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with her for a lot of years, so I think a little spoiling from her Lolly is in order.”
“Just don’t spoil her too much. She’ll have you convinced there is no harm in both of you trying the monkey bars out back if you let her,” I teased.
She’d been eyeing them since we moved in, but I kept telling her she wasn’t big enough to give them a go yet. Of course, she’d looked right to Lolly to see if she might have something different to say about it.
Lolly pulled out a stool at the island and sat down. “You aren’t implying I’m too old to take a little jaunt across the monkey bars, are you?”
“The only thing I’m implying is if you get hurt over here, my father is going to have something to say about it. Hell, he’d have you on the first plane to Santa Barbara.” I raised an eyebrow at her.
She waved it off as inconsequential. “My son doesn’t get to tell me how I spend my days. Bossy, that one, I tell you. He might think he gets to toss around all the orders, but I go right on like I didn’t hear a word.”
I sent her a soft scowl. “He just worries about you.”
“Just because that man thinks he knows what’s best for all of us doesn’t mean he’s right.” She folded her arms on the counter. “God knows, he’s made plenty of mistakes.”
“We all have, haven’t we?” I hummed.
“Yeah. The only thing we can do is hope we learn from them.”
I got the sense she was trying to give a gentle prod in the direction of Pruitt, the horrible choice I’d made to stay with him for as long as I had.
“Can I get you a cup of tea?” I asked, changing the subject.
“That sounds nice.”
I went about filling two mugs with water and setting them in the microwave before I moved to the pantry where I’d placed a variety of tea bags. I picked out a nice chamomile for us both.