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)
She didn’t give one single shit that we were meeting Steel’s friends.
All she cared about was that she had some money, thanks to a job that Steel had gotten her at the police department of all places, and wasn’t going to get to spend the cash she’d made over the last week.
Not to mention that because of her anger toward me, I’d taken her phone away. The phone that she’d been using to talk to a boy on for the first four hours of the day. Which had then set her off all over again.
“How long do we have to stay?” Conleigh hissed at my back.
Steel looked down at me, caught my anger, and winked.
I rolled my eyes and turned my head so I could look over my shoulder. “As long as I feel like staying, Conleigh, and not a moment before.”
She growled at me under her breath, and her brother jumped in.
“You sound like a bear,” Cody observed.
“She’s acting like one, too.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Conleigh snarled.
My lips twitched when Steel gave me a laughing look.
I guess that was what it would take not to take Conleigh’s attitude personally.
When Steel was around, she was an angel. Literally, there was the child that Conleigh was when Steel was around, and the one that she was when we were alone.
Sure, she’d complained in front of him when we’d had the verbal smackdown after she’d tried to wear daisy dukes to school, but eventually Conleigh had gotten her act together and had changed. Today? Well, today she was still the girl that I knew and loved…even though sometimes her attitude made me question my sanity.
Conleigh had shared her anger far and wide, and even Steel, her very best advocate, didn’t get spared.
She’d raged at him right along with me, accusing him of being the antichrist, and then informed him that ‘his shit stank just like the rest of the population.’
She was still bitching, moaning and complaining as we walked through the front doors.
And then she came to a halt right inside the doors, just as I did.
Her reasoning was likely due to the hunky looking man boy standing in our way. Mine was due to the fact that Steel’s face had split into a wide smile as he threw his arms around the boy and said, with great affection, “Linc!”
I found myself grinning, even though I had no clue who this Linc character was.
What I did know was that he was tall, toned, and in fucking awesome shape. He had a beard, his hair was on the longer side, and he was a near body double for Jessie James—one of the members of the MC that Steel belonged to.
My lips twitched when I got a look at my daughter’s face.
I looked over to Steel to gauge his reaction, and I saw the moment he realized that Conleigh was enamored. The man missed nothing.
“Linc,” Steel said, stepping away from him and shifting sideways to allow Linc to see us more fully. “This is my woman, Winnie, her daughter, Conleigh, and Cody, her son.”
It took a few moments for me to process what, exactly, was said, but when I did, my eyes widened right along with my daughter’s.
Linc caught both and started to chuckle. “Y’all could pass as sisters.”
We got that a lot. I would’ve told him so, too, but I was still stuck on Steel’s declaration.
My woman.
My. Woman.
Winnie, Steel’s woman. That was me—he was referring to me!
Steel caught my reaction and started to grin, but before he could say anything else, kids came out of the woodwork and started to pat Steel’s pant legs.
I backed away as more and more came and then started to laugh when he bent down to their level.
They loved him. Every last one of them.
“So…Steel and you?”
I looked over at my daughter, who’d whispered to me, “Uhhh, yeah. I…yeah…”
Conleigh smiled at me for the first time that day.
“I like it, Mom. I’m glad. Steel is a good guy and doesn’t freak out when I do something stupid.” She paused. “But, Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“I thought I heard you say the other day on the phone with Krisney that Steel was still married.”
I winced. “It was a mix-up,” I began to explain, not leaving anything out.
I didn’t want Conleigh to think that I would ever condone this had the situation not been as it was. I wasn’t a cheater, and it didn’t matter if you were as hot as Steel was. I had standards, unlike my ex-husband.
“Steel isn’t a cheater.”
I looked up to find Linc, who was incredibly good at blending into the woodwork, staring at us. He’d obviously heard every word that we’d discussed.
“I know,” I agreed softly.
His eyes turned to Conleigh. “You can trust him. He once came and got me when I was drunk off my ass and hours away from my college acceptance conference. He sobered me up, got me cleaned up and dressed, and then dropped me off in time for the televised event. All of that without telling my dad. He’s trustworthy, and you won’t find a better man to have your back.”