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)
And for some strange reason, I knew it would be. The tightness in Steel’s words made me realize that Steel had yet to let me down. And I knew he never would.
He was nothing like Matt. Nothing.
Where Matt hadn’t told me a single word about Anderson being out of jail, Steel would go out of his way to make sure that I felt not a single ounce of fear. Even if we weren’t together, I knew he would’ve been the first person to inform me that the man I’d put in jail was out.
I also knew that, if this ever ended, even badly, he’d never treat me wrong. He’d still spend time with Cody and Conleigh. He would never drop them like Matt had done.
When we passed each other on the road, he’d never curl his lip at me, acting like it’d been all my fault that we were over. No, Steel would stop. Talk. Make sure that I was okay.
And it would be pure, unfiltered torture.
Because I knew that I would never, ever recover from losing Steel. Not ever.
He was deep in my skin, and if the day ever came that he came to his senses and left, I’d be heading for a one-way trip to rock bottom.
I was in love with the man. I loved him. I loved Steel Cross.
I loved that he loved my kids. I loved that he loved his job. I loved that he dropped everything to go help his son. I loved that he asked how I was doing, even if it was in the middle of a movie or in a simple text. I loved that he sought me out to say hi if he came into the hospital. I loved that he brought me a cookie from a little old lady that had brought them to the police station for saving her cat. I loved that he was teaching my son how to be a man and my daughter how to funnel her anger into something productive. Even more, I loved how he wanted to make sure that all of his other officers were protected before him.
I just plain loved him and everything about him. There was nothing that I didn’t love.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, what?” I questioned, totally lost.
“Do you understand that this could get ugly?”
A little of my exhilaration fled.
“Yeah,” I promised. “I do.”
He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Go to bed.”
I tried. I really did. But hours later, when I thought about something I wanted to add to my shopping list, I realized it was futile. But for now, I’d enjoy being in Steel’s arms.
Here, there was nothing wrong. Here, everything was always right.
***
Conleigh
Sneaking out was surprisingly easy, considering the alarm.
I’d had to practice earlier in the day when I was the only one home, but eventually, I figured out that I had to hold my pillow over the panel on the wall and disarm it from the app on my phone. That way nobody heard that I’d deactivated it.
Really, the hardest part had been figuring out how to get outside without waking Steel. He’d come in only an hour before, and I’d semi freaked out that I wouldn’t be able to do it. However, after turning off the alarm, I’d snuck out the kitchen window—which was the only window without the alarm due to the glass break sensor.
And as I ran to the car that waited at the end of the street for me, I felt exhilarated.
The closer I got to the car, the more excited I became.
Andy was in that car.
The car door opened, and my heart seemed to stall in my chest when I saw his beautiful smiling face.
He was older than I expected but no less beautiful.
My mom could date an older man, so why couldn’t I?
Chapter 17
Excuse the mess. My children are feral.
-Text from Winnie to Steel
Winnie
“And what’s your chief complaint?” I asked the young girl.
The girl was cute. A blonde in her early twenties. Her face, though, had a tinge of green to it.
“I have pain,” she whispered, then pointed down to her crotch. “Down there.”
I didn’t even blink at that.
Pain ‘down there’ was a pretty normal occurrence in the ER. This complaint was seen quite a bit and I wasn’t sure anything could phase me anymore.
“When did this pain start?” I asked, standing up and walking around the desk.
“Ummmm, about four days ago. My boyfriend and I did some…things. It got pretty wild, but neither he nor I have been able to really remember what we did. I just know that next morning I woke up with my downstairs hurting and a killer hangover.”
Oh, to be young again.
I nearly grinned as I tugged the blood pressure cuff off the wall and took her vitals.
“Have you been running any fever?” I questioned as I aired the cuff up.