Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
She turned her head to look at me through her Chanel sunglasses, retorting, “He’s terrified of you. I understand this. You’re terrifying.”
“I’m not terrifying.”
“You’re all he wants in a woman. My guess, Imogen Swan was the same, and look at the mess he made of that.”
“Nora,” I snapped.
“Don’t worry, darling. I’ll behave.”
She might.
She probably would not.
“My daughter?” I prompted.
“Hi, Tom!” Cadence cried, forcing us to stop our conversation before I got a promise from my friend to get with the program.
“Hey, Cadence,” he greeted, then looked beyond her to us. “Mika. And welcome, Nora. Good to see you again.”
Everything else flew out of my head when I laid eyes on him.
He was wearing dark-blue athletic joggers made of some wicking material and a white, long-sleeved shirt that fit his upper body like a second skin.
And I wanted to be on my knees in front of him in that outfit, except with the joggers down around his thighs.
“Hello, Tom,” Nora called, then murmured to me, “Second circle, Mika.”
“What?” I asked distractedly, tearing my eyes from Tom as we stepped into the shade of the tall overhang that jutted out at the front of his house.
She pulled her glasses from her nose, slid her gaze to me and said, “Lust, darling.”
Yes, she knew me too well.
I might have growled.
She grinned and strode forward, raising her hand to take Tom’s outstretched one.
“Cadence! Look how big Nala got!” I heard Clay exclaim from inside.
“So cute!” Cadence exclaimed in return and disappeared into the shadows of the house.
Thankfully, when I made it to him, Tom didn’t shake my hand. He bent and kissed me on the cheek.
But when I caught the look on his face, I asked, “Everything okay?”
“Can we talk privately before I take Clay to the club?”
We hadn’t been invited to the club, and as much as I wanted to watch him work with Clay, and just spend more time with him whatever we were doing, I felt there was a message behind that, so I wasn’t going to insinuate myself, or my daughter and friend, into it.
“Sure,” I answered, not at all sure with what I saw on his face.
He nodded, and with a hand light on the small of my back, he ushered me inside.
Greetings and introductions were made, Priscilla and I talked about how big the kittens were getting (and I’d seen them only a few days before, still, they were filling out beautifully and were forming those adorable, roly-poly kitten bellies), but Tom didn’t waste time showing Cadence and Clay how to bottle feed.
I took this as a hint he wanted this done and he wanted us out, which may have been the wrong bead to take.
Perhaps it was time to feed, and he didn’t want the cats to wait.
And he wasn’t unfriendly to me. Still, the distance I felt between us was miles, even if he was right there.
There was making sure we didn’t stray from just friends, something I understood.
There was being remote and abrupt, which he was being, something I did not understand.
And it didn’t feel good.
“Not on his back, like a baby?” Cadence asked, looking confused as Tom helped her set Boris up on his belly to take his bottle.
“Think of how kittens feed from their mommas,” Tom urged.
“Oh, yeah. Right. Makes sense.” Cadence radiated a smile at him that punched a hole right through my heart.
I’d never seen her smile at a man that way, like a daughter pleased she made her father proud.
It was crushingly beautiful.
And I felt that.
Crushed.
She focused on what she was doing. I focused on pulling myself together. Clay focused on his kitty. Priscilla watched her son dotingly. I was doing the same with my daughter, though maybe for a different reason.
But Nora was yawning broadly (behind a hand, she wasn’t a savage) when Tom’s head jerked.
“You got this?” he asked Cadence.
She nodded up at him, expression serene, in kitten la-la land.
Tom glanced at me, I nodded too, in order to indicate I’d keep an eye, even though I didn’t know how to feed kittens, and he headed to the door.
Since we were in his sunken living room, I stopped keeping an eye and looked to the door, fearing who was behind it.
Was it Paloma, there for a surprise visit?
Or was it Paloma, and he knew she was coming?
That would explain the remoteness, at least.
It would also be awkward, and weird, since he could just say she was coming.
However, hadn’t they been together long enough she didn’t knock on the front door, but rather came through some more family-like entry, or at the very least just let herself in?
I felt Nora get close and whisper in my ear, “Just friends?”
She didn’t know me too well.
She knew me too well.
I gave her my attention. “Go away.”
She smiled wryly and did not go away.