Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 104(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
I raised my sister’s son as my own and did my best to forget about the woman who stole my heart. It almost worked. My kid is great, my construction business grew into an empire, but my bed’s been cold for almost two decades. When Fischl re-appears, I decide that I’ve waited long enough. To hell with keeping secrets or doing the right thing, I’m going to have her.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
COOPER
I glance at the clock. It’s ten minutes before the hour, and my son is still not downstairs. I rub my forehead before yelling, “You’ve got ten minutes!”
Next year he’s going off to college, but he seems woefully unprepared. I send an apology to the big man upstairs. “You know I’m doing my best,” I say to the empty room. Of course, there’s no response. I don’t take it personally. If there had been one, I’d be worried.
The silence is disrupted by the thud of feet against the ceiling and then the slamming of a door. Seconds later, a whirlwind swings into the kitchen, grabbing the orange juice from the table and twirling toward the dishwasher at the same time as the blurry form downs the drink. My eighteen-year-old comes to a stop, opens his mouth, and releases a loud belch right in front of me. I push him slightly to the side and pull open the dishwasher. He dumps the cup in and pats me on the back. “Thanks, Dad.”
His large paw snatches up the breakfast sandwich I put together, and then he moves to the mudroom to shove his feet into his sneakers. In between bites of egg, cheese, bacon, and bread, he says, “Ms. Cotton wants you to come in to talk about my progress.”
I make a face. I didn’t like teachers when I was in high school, and now that I’m over at least a decade out of school, I do my very best to avoid them. “Why? I thought your grades were all up.”
“They are, and that’s the problem. The tutor you hired for me over the summer did too good of a job, and now Ms. Cotton thinks I should move into an advanced class. I told her no, and she said she’d talk to you about it.”
“Do you want to take an advanced class?” I ask, trying not to push my aversion to schooling on to my kid.
“Hell no.”
“But it’s good for you? Or good for your college stuff?”
Dunc points a long finger at me. “Oh no, you don’t. You said I only needed to get my grades up so I could graduate with a B average. I’m doing that. I did not agree to harder classes.”
“Okay. Okay.” I raise my hands in surrender. “Just tell her no then.”
“I did, and she still said she wants to see you. Tomorrow. Honestly, I think she wants to get in your pants. I kind of told her you’re a lost cause, but she wasn’t listening.” He shoves the rest of his food into his mouth and heads out the door. “She’s pretty for a teacher, if that means anything. I know it doesn’t though!” And with that last indictment, he’s gone.
I pull the screen door shut and clean up the dishes. Duncan is correct. No matter how pretty the woman, I’m a lost cause. He doesn’t understand it. He says that even his female friends think I’m a “dilf” and I should take advantage of that. To which I replied that doing so would get me jail time. He rolled his eyes and said, “You know what I mean.”
And I do. He means I should be out there dating or, at the very least, getting laid. I’ve tried to explain it to him a couple of times about how I fell for a girl when I was sixteen and that she was the one for me, but his eyes glazed over. The one true love thing doesn’t really make sense to a teenager. It was hard for me to make sense of that when I was sixteen and laid eyes on Fischl. After seeing her at the sub shop picking up food for delivery, I never wanted another woman again.
A pang of aching loneliness spears through me. I give myself a good shake and finish my chores before heading off to work. No need to sink into the pit of memories. I’ve made my peace with the past. I had six perfect months with the girl of my dreams. That I didn’t get more than that is a product of just cursed luck. You can’t expect someone to wait a lifetime for you. It’s just not reasonable.
I drive over to the Riverside Development project and take a look around. Everything appears on schedule.
“Hey, Coop.” My foreman waves me over. “You busy?”
“No, I’ve got time. What do you need?” I’m already rolling up my sleeves.
Alec, my foreman, glances down at my feet. “Good, you’re wearing boots. One of my roofers called in sick. Are you okay with handling some asphalt today?”
“Get me a tool belt.” Nothing like some real work to tire my brain out so I don’t spend all day thinking about Fischl. Most days fly by when I’m busy. The slow days are when thoughts of what might’ve been, what I could’ve done, creep in. Like, when I saw Fischl with her kid and her husband, could I have kidnapped her and the kid and run away to some remote cabin in the woods and kept the two of them locked up forever? What would I do for money? How would Dunc survive? In a fantasy world, Dunc, Fischl, and I would be a unit, and that kid by her side I saw that day in the park would be mine. Fischl’s and mine. Not Fischl and that weak-chinned, suit-wearing, going-to-be-bald-before-he’s-forty, pasty-faced nothing that she was hugging. Can’t really say he’s nothing, though, because he ended up with Fischl, and my bed’s been empty for since she disappeared.