Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 47176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Before I can respond, we’re at the top of the stairs, and the two most adorable dogs are waiting for us.
Jamie laughs as the Chihuahua starts whining and jumping around, wagging his tail at me. His name is Lucifer, Jamie tells me as I pick him up, holding him, and the Retriever is Benny.
Lucifer laps at my face as I give him a cuddle.
“Why have you got such a baddie’s name, huh?”
Jamie chuckles as he kneels, scratching Benny behind the ear.
“Matt called him that because of his growl,” Jamie says. “But he seems to like you.”
I cuddle closer to the little guy, laughing as he licks my face.
Then my belly tugs sharply, a real freaking pull of guilt, dragging me down to thoughts of Kelly, to vignettes of what could be happening to her.
“You have to find her,” I whisper, not even caring if the change of subject will seem abrupt.
I must seem hot and cold in the extreme right now.
But it’s like I don’t even know what I’m feeling.
Why does this have to be happening now?
It’s an unfair thought. As if falling for Jamie – and him falling for me – would have ever been convenient.
“I will,” he says. “I’ve got a CIA contact who’s running checks on Junior and his men, too, for properties.”
“You have?” I say.
He nods, smiling tightly. “Yeah, I called him last night. I wanted to mention it, but….”
“But they haven’t found her yet,” I murmur.
“Peggy knows what she’s doing,” he says quickly, walking over to me and placing his hand on my arm. “She knows how to handle stuff like this. Her contacts don’t operate in the same world as the CIA. That’s why I need her. Things like this…it’s not like the movies. It doesn’t all happen like that. A lot of it is waiting while plans take their shape.”
“I want to kick down the door and get her myself,” I say.
My voice would rise if it wasn’t for the Chihuahua in my arms, lying on his back, smiling up at me with his tongue sticking out.
This is what I mean. Nothing matches.
This should be a happy moment, talking with the future father of my children and meeting his dogs.
But instead, the word ex and hostage and dead are bouncing around my mind.
That’s such a selfish thought. I hate it. I want to stop thinking stuff like that. This isn’t about me.
“Peggy put some feelers out overnight. Let’s get this tattoo finished, and then I’ll go rescue Kelly. You’ll see.”
I softly place Lucifer down.
Then I shift to step forward. I want to place my hand on his chest and make him say it. It’s awful to want, but I can’t help it. Or maybe that’s an easy out.
Maybe I don’t fight it hard enough.
I want to tell him, Tell me you want me more than you ever wanted anybody else…
And then I think, more than Kelly.
I hate it, hate that Kelly was ever with this man.
Hate myself for aching for him.
Hate the world for being built this way.
Turning, I nod.
“Okay, let’s get the tattoo done. Good idea.”
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Jamie
I press down on the tattoo gun and place my hand where it was before.
Yesterday.
But after the second kiss…I don’t know. I feel like something’s changed between us.
I deftly start on Kelly’s name, swallowing a ball of… something. Maybe not guilt. I didn’t do anything wrong, but I feel like I am, right now, not telling my woman the truth.
My old man never prepared me for what happens when keeping your word means betraying the only woman you ever wanted.
Goddamn it.
“What are you thinking about?” Jennifer asks.
My work, I’m about to say. It’s a lie, one I’d casually tell any random bastard asking annoying questions. Maybe Matt was right about me. You’re a grumpy one, bro.
But I don’t feel that way with Jennifer. So I tell her the truth.
“My dad.”
“Oh, is he….”
“My parents are gone,” I say. “Natural causes, both of them. They had me later in life.”
“Really?”
I wipe down her skin, the zzz of the tattoo gun a constant background noise. “My mom was forty-one, and my dad was fifty-nine.”
“Oh, wow,” she says. “That’s quite an age gap.”
I tighten my hand on her. “Do age gaps bother you, Jennifer?”
She laughs lightly and then stops as if she doesn’t think she deserves it. That just adds to the swirling mass of confusion.
I need to tell her. She can’t keep suffering like this.
But I gave Kelly my word…
But Kelly isn’t my woman…
“No,” she says, drawing me back to the present. “I think you know that. Were you close with your parents?”
“With my mother, definitely. She was a great woman. Quick-witted. Funny. My dad was more distant. He’d been in the military for thirty years. But he taught us well, Matt and me. Well…”
Me, at least.
“Well?” my woman prompts.
“It’s nothing,” I say.