Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67490 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
I was dying. “It’s not that bad!”
“It is that bad,” he disagreed as he got to the door of his truck and opened it.
Before I could blink, he was bending down and catching something that’d started to fall out.
He caught it, then threw it over me and placed both me and the object in the truck.
I blinked at the splotches of light I could see through what I guessed was a blanket now covering my head.
I pulled it off, uncaring about how it messed up my hair, and stared at the luscious blanket.
I was immediately envious.
There were a few minor imperfections, but they gave the entire thing character.
And it was soooo soft.
“This is beautiful,” I said as I ran my hand over the bright purple and pink yarn.
“It’s yours,” he said. “I was going to give it to you the next time I saw you. I was literally finishing it when I got notified that you were here.”
I was at a loss for words.
“You… What?” I asked, still looking confused.
“It’s yours,” he repeated what I’d thought I heard. “I just finished it today.”
My heart melted.
If I wasn’t already gone for this man before all the stuff with my sister had gone down, I would’ve been totally gone for him now. Not only had he dropped everything to rush to me today after hearing what happened, but he’d also listened to me talk about my blanket for an hour that one single night. And then he’d learned how to make it and had made it.
Was I in an alternate universe? How had I found a man so perfect?
“Oh,” I swallowed. “How?”
Then, because I was losing my absolute shit, I pulled the blanket close to me, buried my face into the softest yarn I’d ever felt, and burst into tears.
My heart literally broke.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered. “If you don’t like it, we can pull it all apart, I had to do that…”
“No!” I wailed into the blanket. “I love it. Don’t ever, ever take it apart.”
I felt his big hand rest on the back of my neck for a few seconds before he moved it, then I felt the seatbelt being threaded around my hunched body.
Moments later we were leaving, the deep rumble of his Ford truck soothing in a way I never knew it could be.
I don’t know when or how I fell asleep, but I did.
In the middle of Dallas traffic, with the man at my side cursing under his breath the entire way.
CHAPTER 12
I don’t flirt. I talk. It’s not my fault that everything I say sounds like butter on a hot tortilla.
-Keene to Val
KEENE
“I can’t tonight,” I said into the phone.
Winston paused, having never heard me deny him when he asked.
“But…”
“I can’t tonight,” I repeated. “I’m sorry.”
“Is it the girl?” he asked.
I felt my heart melt. “Yeah. The girl.”
“I actually wasn’t calling to ask you to go anywhere,” he admitted. “I wanted to talk some shop with you, though. Are you busy tomorrow?”
I looked at the woman still asleep in my truck.
We’d been driving for hours, but I wanted to give her the peace she needed.
Though, at one point, I’d finally pulled over into a parking lot and let the truck idle.
There was only so much my nerves could handle of I-30, 635, and all those other awful death traps of roads.
How Texans got on that every day and didn’t completely lose their minds was beyond me.
“Maybe tomorrow,” I admitted. “But I’m still not sure.”
“Okay,” he said. “If you find that you have some free time, come up to my place. I’ll be here through tomorrow night. Crimson’s working at Circus House this week, training a few new people.”
“Got it,” I said. “I’ll come up if I have time.”
If I was home…
I wouldn’t be leaving her alone. Not even if she begged me.
I’d be staying at her parents’ house if it came down to it, but her getting rid of me wasn’t ever going to happen.
Not when I was already in this deep.
Whatever I’d been worried about before I’d met her when it came to marriage had completely left me.
Any and all thoughts now were about her, and being with her, and talking to her. Just having her in my life.
The thought of never seeing her again was a foreign concept that didn’t compute in my brain.
“Thanks,” Winston said. “I’ll see you later. If you need anything, give me a call.”
Then he was hanging up, and I was once again staring out the window at the Freebirds World Burrito that I’d thought about eating twice now.
A soft sniffle caused me to look over.
What I saw made my heart hurt.
A fresh tear rolled down her cheek from her left eye, as if she was crying in her sleep.
Only, when that blue eye of hers opened, it let me know that she was most certainly awake.