Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
“That’s awful.” She moved closer to the grave. “What did you mean by you saying ‘she does that’?”
I walked closer and studied the tidy grave.
I kept it mowed down and clear. The same couldn’t be said for my wife’s grave. Compared to Nola’s, my wife’s looked abandoned and forgotten. But that was by design. She didn’t deserve a spot next to my little one, but the townspeople would’ve thought I was heartless had I not buried her. They’d been watching as I did it, after all.
“Nola hasn’t passed into the afterlife, yet,” I admitted, staring at the apparition next to the grave that housed my daughter’s bones.
The intake of breath I’d expected to hear earlier finally came, and I turned to study Acadia.
“You’re saying you can see her?” she breathed.
I nodded.
“I can,” I confirmed.
She was in the same nightdress that I’d dressed her in sixty-four years ago right before I’d left the house never to see her again.
I remembered that night like it was just yesterday.
Tell her what happened, Nola ordered me in that haughty attitude she always used to shower me with. I could still hear her telling me ‘no.’
• • •
“Daddy, can I go?”
“No, Nola baby. I have to go to work.”
Work being a relative term. I had to go protect my territory from the intruders and to do that, I had to leave her here where it was safe.
“But I want to go.” She pouted, rolling her bottom lip over so I could get the full effect of her pout.
I tried not to smile.
“How about I take you tomorrow night?” I tried to reason.
Though, I should’ve known better. There was no reasoning with a three-year-old.
“No. Tonight,” she ordered, crossing her tiny arms over her chest and glaring at me.
I lost the battle with my laughter and gathered my girl into my arms.
“I have to go stop some bad guys,” I told her.
Nola thought I was a superhero. All she saw were the fast movements and my strength. She didn’t see the other side of me. The side that my wife hated with a passion.
“Okkkkay,” she drawled out. “But you have to get me ready for bed and read me a story. Mommy doesn’t do it right.”
Smiling as a glimmer of satisfaction rolled through me, I picked her up, walked her to the chest of drawers where her nightdresses were, and helped her pick out just the right one.
Pink, of course.
She was a girly girl, through and through.
After the fourth bedtime story, I tucked her in and placed a kiss on her cheek.
“Good night, baby,” I whispered roughly.
Her return smile was blinding.
“I love you, Daddy.”
• • •
I couldn’t tell her any more.
“I got home to a burned down house,” I told her. “Or at least part of it. That’s why I have this fence now.” I gestured to the fence at my back.
“Oh,” she breathed. “I probably scared you tonight.”
I shook my head.
“I knew you were here before you even entered the boundary,” I informed her. “I can feel it the moment someone steps foot on it.”
“How?”
I wouldn’t be telling her that. One didn’t share their secrets with the enemy, even if the enemy was beautiful.
“Was there something you needed?” I asked.
Her back straightened as she realized I wasn’t going to tell her how I knew she was there, but she didn’t call me on it.
“I wanted to make sure you were okay after your business was bombed,” she explained. “And I needed to get away for a little bit, so I killed two birds with one stone.”
I grunted.
“Do you want to come in?” I asked.
I wanted to reach out and pull her into my arms so badly that it hurt, but I refrained.
I’d done a lot of thinking since the bombing of my office, and I came up with a few things.
One of which being that Acadia wasn’t a good idea.
Women were dangerous beings, and I’d learned my lesson a long, long time ago.
She shook her head.
I could feel her desire.
I scared her, though.
Good. That was the way it was supposed to be.
“No, thank you,” she whispered. “I’m supposed to meet Keisha for dinner.”
My fangs burst free of my gums at the mention of ‘dinner’ and I nearly groaned. I hadn’t been this uncontrolled in decades. Hell, it’d been over two hundred years since I’d popped a hard-on and had my fangs descend without me willing them to do so.
And I knew this was a very fine line I was walking. One I—and my race—wasn’t ready for.
Bring her car around, I called to Chen through mindspeak. And make sure nobody has followed her.
I could practically hear Chen’s snorted ‘yeah, okay’ in my head. He did have enough decency not to contradict me, however. Even if he had already checked for intruders other than the one currently standing in front of me.