Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Then her family arrived.
All of them at once.
Four sisters, their husbands, a set of twins, her brother, and an older girl who was holding onto Slone Day, who might very well be just as famous as Winston Osborn.
Holy shit.
“Val, anything?” Val’s sister asked.
She was bobbing up and down as the infant child in her arms started to fuss at the stop in motion from its carrier.
The man who was behind her looked at me with annoyance, as if he didn’t want me here, but I didn’t move.
“Here, hold her.”
I blinked when the baby was thrust into my arms.
A very small baby that had the man already glaring at me go from annoyed to murderous.
I curled the baby expertly in my hands.
I’d delivered enough babies with my round in OB—obstetrics—and held enough friends’ babies to know how to handle them. That didn’t mean I knew how to hold a baby of a man who looked like he wanted to now rip my head off.
The baby started to gurgle, and I looked down into blue eyes that looked a lot like the woman sitting next to me.
And not the one who’d been holding the baby.
“Who are you?” angry dad asked.
I opened my mouth to tell him who I was when Val said, “He’s the man who saved Crimson’s life.”
Silence.
Utter and complete silence.
The look changed from murderous to only slightly murderous.
“Did you really?”
Another large man who looked like he could murder me, too.
“Uh,” I said.
“Yes,” Val murmured almost too quietly to hear, voice thick with unshed tears. “If it wasn’t for him, Crimson would’ve passed away in the ER. We have him to thank for his quick thinking and expert skill. He was able to do a quick and dirty stitch up of the artery in her neck. Then he got her stabilized and filled back up with blood. He was amazing.”
That made me feel like I was ten feet tall.
But also like I was a piece of shit, because when she’d come here earlier in the day, I hadn’t realized just how bad her life had been since I’d last seen her. I’d only been thinking about my own selfish issues.
Sure, she’d been my issue. Not having her where I wanted her—in my arms—had been the main reason I did so well over the last couple years. I’d become single-mindedly focused on work to the point where I was doing nothing else but that. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was obsessing over why the hell I couldn’t find her.
I mean, I knew her damn name. I knew the damn circus she worked for. I knew her sisters’ and brother’s names. I knew everything that there was to know about her. Everything but where the hell to find her.
It was like she was hiding from me.
And maybe she had been.
But based solely off what her life was looking like right now, that might’ve been the reason why she’d stayed hidden.
Shit.
“Thank you,” Keene said, holding out his hand.
I gave the baby I was holding to the man who was still glaring at me, and he took her gladly.
Then backed away like he thought I might jump up and try to take her back.
I wouldn’t, but the way he was acting made me want to make a go for it just to see what he would do.
I took the brother’s hand instead.
For four years, I’d heard all that I could hear about Val’s family.
I knew what their likes and dislikes were. I knew their first and middle names. I’d heard almost everything.
So I felt like I knew Keene as I said, “It’s nice to finally meet you, Keene.”
Keene frowned and looked at his sister.
“This is him,” she murmured quietly.
Understanding dawned, and then a look of anger replaced the understanding, replaced just as quickly by a blank face.
“Wait, you’re the guy who ignored every one of her phone calls, texts, and emails after she left to come be with us?” one of the sisters asked.
“He didn’t deserve to hold my baby,” the man holding the twins said.
I opened my mouth to say something—because what the hell were they talking about?—but the doors to the OR opened and a man stepped out.
I knew that man, and I stood up and walked toward him.
“What is it?” I asked worriedly.
“She’s having issues with bleeding. I was hoping to bleed you of a few pints,” Mackson murmured quietly as not to alert the family that was behind me, likely trying to hear every word.
Mackson was the head of the OR. He was the most senior person in the hospital, and we’d hit it off very well my first day here when we’d been stuck in an elevator together for over two hours.
We’d gone out more for beers than I’d been out with my best friend.
I liked him a lot, and he had a lot of knowledge to share.