Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“Done. Mia!” she called to the other girl, and they were gone in a blur.
“You doing okay up there, Morgan?” I asked. What kind of perfume was she wearing? Sure as hell smelled divine. Vanilla and strawberries?
“I should be asking you that, seeing as I’m currently sitting on you.”
I almost laughed. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m doing just fine.” I sent a wink in Finley’s direction, who giggled behind her hand.
“You’re not going to be too tired to lift me out?” Morgan asked, worry saturating her voice and increasing the number of syllables in that last word. Holy shit, the woman could read the phone book with that accent, and I’d be hooked.
“Trust me, I could hold you all day. I’m not going to let you fall.”
I felt a gentle give in her posture. Good, she’d relaxed a little.
“So, you bought the house, huh?” I asked, trying to fill the silence until the girls could get around to Morgan.
“Yeah. Maybe I should have looked at it first.” Her voice dropped, nearly unintelligible with the wood muffling the sound between us.
“You didn’t look at it first?” Seriously?
“I saw pictures!” she shot back. “And the inspection report, and Google Maps. I just didn’t visit it…until today.”
Holy shit. She’d walked in blind? The house itself was structurally sound, but damn, did it need some upkeep. It hadn’t been touched since the Hatchers bought it back in the seventies.
“And is it what you were expecting?”
She tensed.
“Morgan?”
“It’s not that I didn’t want something to fix. I did. I do. I want to look at something and say, ‘I did that.’” Her sigh was loud enough for me to feel it in my chest. “There just happens to be a lot more fixing to do than I initially thought.”
“Is your husband handy?” I’d learned that it was always safer to assume a woman was in a relationship than go with the opposite. Plus, with her soft, bare skin under my fingers, it would be handy to know if I was about to get punched in the face by an overprotective partner.
Her thighs turned to stone.
“I’m not married, not involved, and not looking.” She bit out every word.
Damn, I’d just gotten rejected from a girl I hadn’t even hit on. That was a first.
“Sorry, I saw the truck and assumed.” And there was the number one problem with assuming anything. “Not that a woman can’t have a jacked-up truck like that or anything. It’s a nice piece of equipment.”
“It was left to me by…a friend. I drive the Mini Cooper over there. So, know any good contractors?”
Subject closed. Got it.
“I can dig you up some names—”
“We’re here! Sorry, we had to climb over the bottom gate and, well, we’re short. It took a second.” Sam leaned over the railing. “Ready?”
“Absolutely. Morgan?”
“Yep.”
“Here we go. I’m sorry, this might hurt a little. You’re pretty banged up.”
“Do it. I’m tougher than I look.”
I somehow didn’t doubt it as I switched my grip to her hips, careful to place my hands outside her dress. “One. Two. Three.” I lifted her slowly and watched her progress through the small opening.
“Okay, angle back toward Sam,” I ordered as the curve of her ass reached the board. At six-four, I could reach over the seven feet to the landing, but I needed a better grip to get her the rest of the way through.
“My hands are about to get friendly,” I warned her.
“What, like they weren’t already?” she joked.
“Ha.” I switched my grip quickly, grasping the back of her thigh with one hand and sliding below her knee with the other. I powered her through, letting my higher hand slip from her thigh as she rose.
“Gotcha!” Sam exclaimed.
Then Morgan stepped free, and my hands were empty.
“It worked!” she called out, leaning over the railing from the stairs above the landing.
I stepped into the evening sunlight and smiled up at her. “Sure did.”
“You rescued her!” Finley called out, running at me in a tangle of curls and limbs. I caught her easily and lifted her to sit on my shoulders.
“Wasn’t really a rescue,” I told my daughter. “Just a few feet.”
“Well, it sure felt like a rescue to me,” Morgan countered, flashing a smile that hit me right at the knees.
“You definitely saved the day,” the petite one—Mia, I think they’d called her—drawled with the local accent I’d grown accustomed to, batting pretty blue eyes at me.
“That’s his job,” Finley answered. She squirmed, and I let her down. “I’m hungry!” With that declaration, she was off and running up our stairs. “I’m glad you’re not stuck anymore, Miss Morgan!” she called out and disappeared into the house.
“Always hungry, that one,” I said with a smile.
“Well, thank you for helping get our friend out.” Sam started up the steps. When Mia didn’t move, she grasped the strap on her tank top. “We’ll see you later.”