Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
We hung up and I placed my phone on the charge pad before I moved through the kitchen, the living room and up the stairs.
I stopped at the top landing, my breath suddenly catching in my throat.
Mo was in the nursery with our baby girl.
I didn’t know this because he’d taken her up there twenty minutes ago to put her down.
I didn’t know it because I could see him.
I knew it because I could hear him.
“No one’s gonna hurt you. No one’s gonna dare,” his deep voice sounded.
Oh my God.
He was sing-talking à la Bono to our little Pooks.
But better.
I pressed my back to the wall and closed my eyes.
Mo’s voice came back.
“Whistle, I’ll be there.”
Oh God.
That was my baby’s daddy.
My man.
He kept going.
“Nothing can harm you. Not while I’m around.”
I had to swallow the sob that soared up my throat.
I opened my eyes and lifted my hand, staring at the big rock Mo had planted there during our first vacation together. The one we took in Hawaii.
It was nestled above a wide gold band that had a match, the one on Mo’s finger.
Our wedding had been the best.
Even better than Jet’s, and she’d had a hayride.
And my gown had kicked Roxie’s gown’s ass. Sheer bodice and long sleeves with a full sheer skirt, all covered in sparkling diamanté. Plunging neckline that nearly went down to my navel, slit in the skirt that went up to my left hip, all this stitched to a bodysuit that covered only the important bits.
Outside the pictures of me with Mo, the pic of Tex escorting me down the aisle with my skirt flying out behind me, my left leg exposed from the hip down in full stride, me smiling so big at Mo, even in a picture, it was blinding, and Tex wearing his lunatic grin was my favorite.
Jet had been my matron of honor.
Mag had been Mo’s best man.
And Mom had sat between Tex and my dad in the front row after Tex gave me away, Dad smiling huge, fighting tears but not fighting that was the place he needed to be. Just happy he got the honor of being there at all.
By the way, Mo’s dad wasn’t invited.
But he did send us a wedding card with a hundred-dollar bill in it through the mail, writing that he hoped Mo was happy in a way that screamed it was tentatively…and hopefully.
Mo didn’t grab that olive branch.
His father had hurt his mother, his sisters.
For a man like Mo, there was no coming back from that.
Not while he was around.
With that hundred bucks, he took Alex, Dante and Cesar to the batting cages.
As an aside, I’d lost my nephews to their big, badass, commando Uncle Mo. They worshipped him.
I didn’t mind.
I totally got that he was way more fun to wrestle with.
Especially when he didn’t let you win.
Leaning against the wall, after I pulled it together, and after Mo was done sing-talking, I moved into the hall then to the doorway to Pooks’s room.
I rested a shoulder against the jamb.
My mound of hunkalicious husband was in the rocker, the long trunks of his legs stretched out, ankles crossed, using his heel to rock the little bundle in a pink polka-dot onesie held belly and cheek to his wide chest with his hand on her tiny diapered bootie.
Her eyes were closed.
I looked to my man.
“She’s asleep,” I whispered.
“I know,” he whispered back.
Of course he knew.
I said not another word.
I simply smiled at my husband holding our little girl and experienced something I experienced a lot from the minute I met Mo Morrison.
Falling a little deeper in love with him.
Then I left Daddy with his princess, his moon and stars…
And walked to our room.
The End