Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Not that I had a problem with Sean wearing his club colors.
In fact, any other time I adored when he wore it. I loved the way it looked on him, and how he acted when he was wearing it—like something was different about him. More confidence. More pride. More carefree.
Whatever it was, the man looked sexy in his Dixie Wardens cut.
It was only when I had my face pressed against it that I didn’t adore it as much, but I was slowly getting used to it.
Sean took a turn, and I looked around, trying to figure out where we were.
“What is this?” I asked ten minutes later as he brought the bike to a stop under a tall pine tree that was bigger around than I was.
“This,” he put forth, kicking the bike stand down and standing up. “Is mine.”
My head tilted.
“Yours?”
He nodded.
“My land.”
Understanding dawned. “When did you get this?”
He offered me his hand and I took it, dismounting the bike and falling into his side all in one jerk of his hand.
“I got this last year, but I haven’t had much time to stop and see it. Barely have time to pay for it.”
That, I understood too well.
The man worked a lot. Had started working even before the vacation that he was able to finagle out of our employer was up.
Even now that we were both back at work, he still worked a lot.
I worked a lot, too, but that was only because if I didn’t then I’d never see him.
I’d asked him why he did it, but I didn’t know that he had to do it to pay for land that I didn’t even know he had.
“Why don’t you park your trailer here?” I asked, looking up at him. “Then you’d get to see it a lot.”
His mouth firmed.
“I bought it to build a house on with Ellen.”
My belly rolled, and I started to pull away.
He stopped me by clamping his hand around my hip, refusing to allow me to move.
“At the time, our relationship was already deteriorating. I knew she had a thing for Jessie. Saw it with every breath I took. I bought this place—which was twice my budget—in the hopes that she’d love it. But she didn’t.”
Why that made me irrationally happy, I didn’t know. But it did. I wanted to jump up and clap that she was too stupid to see that she had such a good thing and had let it go.
Had she not done that, I wouldn’t be standing here, in Sean’s arms, on some land meant for her.
“That was the day that she told me that she didn’t do ‘country’ living. She didn’t like bugs. She liked paved streets and being close to the city so she could go shopping.” He dropped his mouth to my head, and my tense body tensed even further. “I realized something while you were gone.”
I froze.
“I’d already started planning our life out here. Thinking about what you would like and not like when it came to a house. Wondered if I could convince you to move in with me when we’d only known each other for a few months.”
I turned my head up so I could see if he was sincere.
His eyes were on the gate that was blocking our access to the rest of the land.
Then he tugged me forward and we were walking.
Up a long winding red clay driveway that likely would be a bitch if it rained. Through it was lined with trees that were high and beautiful beyond belief. Then that long driveway turned into a sprawling meadow, and I knew that this was where the house would go.
“Right here,” I told him.
He stopped, and we looked at the land before us.
“I want to put a house there, on the top of the hill.”
He echoed my thoughts exactly.
“I want to leave as many of the trees as we can and to disrupt the look of the land as little as possible,” he explained. “I want a shop where I can work on my bikes and cars. I want a…”
“Pond would look good right here,” I pointed to a really low lying spot where the land dipped sharply into what looked like a creek at the very bottom.
“There’s a year-round creek right there,” he informed me, confirming my suspicions. “And I’ve thought about damming it up right there and doing the same.”
I grinned and pulled away from him, walking down the steep hill to the creek beyond.
Chapter 16
You’re allowed to like other people. You just have to like me more.
-Text from Sean to Naomi
Sean
I watched as Naomi walked down the deep ravine that led to the creek below, her hand down at her side to catch herself if she started to lose her footing, and wondered how I got this lucky.
Naomi was my saving grace. The one woman who’d changed my life and made it into everything I’d ever wanted.