Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
“I did.” I frowned. “What were those parents doing while their dog was biting their kid’s face?”
“I don’t even know.” She shook her head. “It was awful.”
I could imagine.
“What’s awful?”
Steel threaded his arm around my back and pulled me into his chest, and I couldn’t help the sappy smile that lit my face.
Steel was hot and hard all over, and I wanted to bury my face in his neck and inhale his scent.
I managed to contain myself because of my son only a few feet away from me.
“A dog bite.”
Steel grunted. “I had to deal with that one when I got back. The parents will likely be charged. Kid’s fucked up for life.”
I rolled my eyes at Steel’s eloquent use of words.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” I frowned. “Did you go see the child?”
He nodded once. “Yeah. She’s got a long road ahead of her, that’s for sure.”
Terrible.
“Mommy, I want a dog.”
I snorted. “I can’t get a dog right now, buddy. Maybe next year.”
Cody gave me a look that clearly said what he thought about my lie.
“You said that last year.”
Steel started to chuckle.
I shot him a mock glare, and he winked, causing my heart to flip over in my chest.
“Are y’all going to have a baby?”
Startled, I looked over at my son and immediately started to shake my head.
“Ummm, no,” I disagreed. “You and Conleigh are all I need, and Steel has a son that could very well be your father. Trust me, kids aren’t ever in the cards for us.”
Steel squeezed my hip. “Plus,” he drawled. “You’re a handful. I’m not sure we could handle having another kid like you.” Then he looked at me with alarm. “Maybe I should get fixed.”
Wasn’t that the truth.
“What does fixed mean?” Cody questioned.
I held my smile in check. “It means that he would no longer have the necessary products to achieve making a baby anymore.”
Jessie started to laugh as he tugged his wife’s hand. “Let’s go. Watching them try to explain this to a young kid is like watching a train wreck.”
“Just wait,” Steel called after their retreating forms. “You’ll have to have this talk with your own kids soon!”
That I didn’t argue with. They would. Every parent eventually had to.
It was always painful and likely always would be.
“Can we go get ice cream after we leave here?”
My eye twitched.
“The speed in which you change subjects makes my head spin,” Steel murmured. “Are you hungry? There are hot dogs.”
“Steel?”
Cody’s quiet words had Steel dropping down beside my son, his face serious. “Yeah, buddy?”
“Did you know that the average human body holds enough bones to make a human skeleton?”
At that, Steel wasn’t the only one to burst out laughing. We all did.
All of us but Cody.
That was my boy, though. He loved spouting off useless facts, even if sometimes he didn’t understand them.
“Yeah,” Steel said once he had himself under control. “I think I did know that.”
Cody patted Steel’s cheek. “I don’t like hot dogs. Is there any steak?”
Steel took Cody’s hand and walked off, leaving me to watch after them with a smile on my face.
“Careful.”
I looked up to find Fender standing next to me now.
“About what?”
“I see you falling.”
I blinked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hedged.
There was no falling. I’d already fallen. I was literally head over heels in love with the man, and there wasn’t a single thing I could do about it.
Chapter 15
And you thought my beard was big.
-T-shirt
Steel
“Where’s Winnie?” I asked Tally.
Tally pointed in the direction of the breakroom.
“Eating lunch,” she said, eyes on a chart. “Don’t keep her too long. She has to be back for Peter to take his lunch, and he likes to whine to the charge nurse—me—if he doesn’t get his full hour.”
I snorted. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Tally looked up over the rim of some reading glasses and glared. “I’m serious, Big Papa. I have like, eight hundred thousand things to do, and listening to him whine is not one of them. He’s seriously the worst.”
My brows rose at that. “Okay.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t I believe you?”
I shrugged. “I’ve never steered you wrong before, have I, Tally?”
Tally snorted, and I chose to take that answer as a no, before I walked down the hall to the break room.
My eyes scanned the area as I walked, and I nodded my head at Tommy Tom, who saw me through the part in one of the curtained off rooms.
I stopped and turned, then went back to the room where Tommy Tom was holding up an X-ray film in the air below a light.
“Tommy Tom?”
He looked over at me while still holding the film in the air.
“Yeah?”
“You got keys to the break room?” I questioned.
He shook his head.
“What about a supply closet?”
He pulled out a set of keys and tossed them to me.
“No, but I do have keys to my office. You know where it is,” he answered.