Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 90266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 451(@200wpm)___ 361(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
“Hey, it’s okay,” I tell her. “I got you.” I lead her to the living room, and sit her down on the couch. “You wanna talk about it?”
“You wanna talk?” She smiles through her tears, and I hand her a tissue.
“My parent have been married nearly forty years. I’ve watched my dad handle my mom when she’s upset. He gives her a shoulder to cry on, and an ear to listen. I want to do the same for you. Now.”
“Forty years?” She wipes her eyes and she sits back in the couch, bending her knees up under her. “My grandparents were married for sixty.”
“They were?”
She nods. “They passed away this year. They raised me, and I always lived with them. I wasn’t able to keep their farmhouse and didn’t have many options. I felt so alone… so that’s why… well, that’s why I’m here, Hartley. I didn’t want to spend Christmas all by myself in some motel… I wanted a family.”
Her words send a jolt of longing through me. I sat at the table telling her I didn’t even want a wife, and here she is spilling her guts, telling me that I am her last hope.
“You know, when I told you why you were brought here, I was kind of an ass. Because I only thought about myself. Not what might be bringing a woman to meet and marry a man she’s never met. I’m guessing it’s not usually under happy circumstances.”
She exhales, taking my hand. “But I was happy to have this chance,” she says. “And I know I mentioned signs earlier, but when Holly told me I’d be coming here and marrying you on December first, I saw it as another sign.”
“How so?”
She looks at me with bright eyes, and a wide-open heart. “My parents — they died when I was a baby, but they married on December 1st, and so did Grandma and Grandad, some thirty years earlier. So it felt like destiny. Like maybe you were the way out of a really dark time.”
My chest tightens as I realize why she was crying so hard when I got off the phone. “You wanted to marry me today, specifically. Didn’t you?”
She nods, a tear falling down her cheek. “I wanted this to feel like fate. Marrying you like this meant giving up so many of my dreams for a picture-perfect wedding… but I thought maybe, just maybe, it would be okay. That you would meet me and want me. That I wouldn’t just be a crazy idea that your mom had. But that I might be a crazy idea that was also your dream come true.”
“Fuck, Hattie,” I say, drawing her to me. “I want that. I want you.” I pull her to my chest, tipping up her chin. She is fucking gorgeous and doesn’t seem to have a clue. My cock can’t stop twitching because she’s all I fucking want.
“You mean it?” she asks, her words a whisper.
“I do.”
She smiles. “I do too.”
“With that pair of I do’s it sounds like we just got hitched,” I say with a side smile.
“Stop it,” she laughs through her emotions. “I thought you were supposed to be this grumpy mountain man. Now you go and start acting all sweet?”
“I want to make you happy,” I tell her. “You deserve that.”
“And what do you deserve, Hartley?” she asks. It’s a question I’ve never gotten in my whole damn life.
“I know I sure as hell don’t deserve a woman like you.”
She licks her lips, crawling up in my lap and wrapping her arms around my neck. She fits here so damn well. So damn right.
The air shifts between us, the heat rising, the need for her growing. I know she feels it too, and she lets out the tiniest of whimpers to let me know she is right here, in this moment with me.
“But if you did?” she asks. “What if we both deserve what we got?”
“Then I wouldn’t waste our wedding night,” I tell her.
“Is that what we’re calling this?” she asks as I lift her from the couch to take her to my bed.
“Yes,” I tell her. “And right now, I’m carrying you over the threshold.”
Chapter Six
Hattie
I must admit, I did not expect my connection with Hartley to flip so fast… but now that we are in his bedroom, his hand on my hips and our eyes locked… I want to give us a chance. I want this to work.
And as crazy as it sounds, considering I just met this man, I think he wants it to work too.
“I’m in no rush,” he tells me, his thumb brushing against my cheek. “We can stop any time you like.”
“I don’t want to stop,” I tell him. “I want to go all in. With you.”
He leans down and kisses me then. A kiss I will never forget in all my life… because when he kisses me, I feel it. A deep in your bones, I’m forever changed after spending my life dreaming of feeling this way, kiss.