Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
“Little Dove?” Scout curled up his nose.
“Yeah, a dove is a messenger of love, Scout. One who lets you know not all hope is lost. That there is something better on its way.”
My heart squeezed so intensely I couldn’t breathe.
“And that something better is the three of you,” Milo rumbled, still looking up at me.
I eased onto my knees and crawled up beside Milo, picking up Scout as I went and draping him across our chests. I reached around him so I could take Remy’s little hand.
Because this?
It was the always I’d forever wanted.
I pressed a kiss to Remy’s forehead where I stood beside her treehouse bed.
Scout was already fast asleep in his, completely tuckered out from a full day of playing.
Darkness wisped around the room, though it danced without caution or fear. The tiniest glow from a nightlight illuminated the child’s precious face as I looked down at her. She stared up at me with her trusting brown eyes that I had no idea could slay me through.
Her spirit was slowed, her heart light, but her thoughts ran deep. A divot formed on her brow, and she whispered, “My dad told me your mom died, too.”
Sorrow crested, both hers and mine.
Gently, I ran my fingers through her hair. “Yeah. She did.”
“How old were you?”
“I was fifteen…much older than you.”
She barely nodded. “Do you remember her?”
“I do remember her. Not everything, but I remember her smile and what her voice sounded like and the way it felt to hug her. I also remember a lot of the times I got into trouble, which I think I tended to do a lot.” My words were quieted, held in our confession, though the last rippled with hushed laughter.
I’d been kind of a handful.
A grin spread over Remy’s face. “You used to get in trouble?”
She said it like she couldn’t believe it.
I twisted a lock of my hair around my finger and teased, “Redheads are rarely controlled.”
She giggled. “Can I dye my hair red?”
I smoothed my palm over the top of her head. “I think you’re perfect just the way you are, Remy, but when you get older, if you still want to, I’m sure that would be fine, but you’ll have to ask your dad.”
“I think it’s better if I ask you both.”
A current ran through her statement.
A claim.
Love spread through my chest.
A hot spring rushing with warmth.
Gushing up from the depths where I’d had no idea it existed.
“I would like that.”
“Me, too,” she whispered.
I kissed her forehead again, then brushed my thumb along the angle of her jaw. “You’d better get some sleep.”
Nodding, she snuggled down in her covers.
Breathing out, I straightened, then I was sucking for oxygen all over again at the sight of Milo leaning against the doorway, watching us.
Seeing him there pulled at every place inside me.
Heart and soul and body and mind.
He was mine.
Always.
All hulking, burly mountain man with the softest spirit.
Beautiful Beast.
I eased that way, lured by this energy that would never quell.
His big hand went to my waist, and he tugged me toward him and pressed a tender kiss to my lips.
I peered up at him, scratched my fingers through his beard, and murmured, “Today was wonderful.”
He curled his arm completely around my waist and tucked me closer. “It was the best day of my life.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
MILO
I jolted upright in bed, my eyes narrowed into slits as I tried to process what had yanked me from sleep.
An edge cut into my consciousness.
Razor sharp and making my heart gallop in jagged clips.
Night eclipsed the light, the entire room shrouded in it, everything quieted and held. The minutes slowed, bound by something sinister that eddied through the room.
Tessa was twisted into a pretzel beside me, her limbs at odd angles, which I’d come to realize was just the way she slept, her hair strewn all around and her soft breaths filling the air in tiny puffs of peace.
But there was a disorder within it.
A darkness deeper than the night.
Ugly and oppressive.
I steadied my breaths and inclined my ear, listening for anything out of sorts.
It took me a second to realize the noise might have come from one of the kids. To realize they were really here. It’d seemed such an impossibility just yesterday that I doubted my mind had fully accepted the shift.
Only silence echoed back.
An eerie stillness that slithered through the atmosphere in a menacing mist.
Gulping around the spiked rock that filled my throat, I slipped out of bed, keeping my feet light on the hardwood floors as I eased to the bedroom door that we’d left open specifically so we could hear the kids if they needed us.
I peered out.
More of that stagnant tranquility echoed back.
I moved quickly across the space to the hall and down to the children’s room, my breaths quiet and shallow as I checked to make sure they were fine.