Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
I got out, noting I needed to water the plants, and the front door was open. From there I could see through the screen all the way to the back and beyond, where Riggs was working on the back door that was resting on two sawhorses.
I went in, dropped my purse on the kitchen island, and walked along the back porch under Riggs’s watchful eye.
I came to a stop at the top of the steps.
“The storm doors will be delivered tomorrow, delivery window ten to noon. And I think Hutch is mad at me because Gia was more interested in playing with me, I was more interested in playing with Gia, so we got distracted a lot.”
I got another smile from Riggs.
He wasn’t a man to dole them out frugally. Still, I hadn’t seen much of him that day, but that was all he seemed capable of doing.
I felt that.
After last night, and this morning, I was in the same place.
I just loved seeing that he was too.
But I had to be careful in hoping too much.
I’d done a lot of driving that day, and since I trained my thoughts while doing it, it occurred to me that maybe Riggs did want to put us in the Friend Zone because we were neighbors, but things blossomed from there. Or maybe he wanted to take it slow, due to what had happened to me, then, to what was happening to me in MP.
He’d certainly made it clear last night, us being in the Non-Friend Zone was what he wanted, and it was my choice if we were going to take it there.
But the truth was, since his peace offering, he’d shared thoroughly and often he was into me. I’d just thought he was an affectionate guy.
I sensed he was.
Though, he was also very obviously into me.
That said, I hadn’t known him long, but what I did know was that I had to keep in mind this was probably firmly casual…and ride it out.
I knew that because that was what he told me.
And I was in to ride it out.
But I sure was going to enjoy him seeming so happy while we did it.
“Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “Hutch told me she’ll be a great pet, and if the need arises, her training will kick in. Your training will be being able to call her down before she tears a man’s leg off.”
Yikes!
“I should probably focus,” I allowed.
He was still smiling. “Probably.”
“You want a drink?”
“Could use some water.”
“Perrier?”
He stared at me.
That had me smiling.
“I’ll do filtered,” I said, and moved back into the cabin.
I was starting to handle that when he came in, and then I was scrambling back into the counter when he was on me.
Slightly sweaty, dirty from work and smelling of the outdoors, he was all over me, and I didn’t mind, because he was Riggs, and he was good at being all over me.
It also meant I got to be all over him.
Eventually, we came up for air, but he didn’t move away.
“Called Stormy this morning,” he announced.
“Oh boy,” I breathed (what could I say? again, he was all over me).
“Asked if I could have some time to talk privately about something heavy. Seeing as I asked that, he made time right away. He owns the tire shop on the east side of town. Asked me to his office. I went. Gave him the news about Angelica and Bubbles, and we can just say, it rocked my world, but it was worse telling him. Not only giving a man that information, but also seeing my reaction through him. Though, when I learned, I wasn’t holding a coffee cup I threw so hard it shattered against the wall and drenched everything around it because it was full.”
I winced. “Were you around it?”
“No.”
“So I can deduce he’s ticked.”
“You can deduce that, yeah.”
“Is this going to come back on you with Angelica?”
“Gave her the heads up it would happen, if she was smart, she would have done it before me.”
“I sense Angelica’s intelligence is more the devious sort,” I remarked.
“You’d sense right,” he agreed. “Still, thought about it before I did it, including that. Wondered if it was better if I didn’t know, and I could give him that. Then I thought, I’m glad I know. I gotta understand what I’ve got on my hands with her. What she’s capable of. Also, if the tables were turned, how I’d feel if he found out, and didn’t tell me. Bottom line, he shares a kid with her too. So he had to know.”
“This is true.”
“And don’t worry. She doesn’t have a leg to stand on to make any trouble for him or me. What she does have is a history. A history of jacking both of us around. And it isn’t illegal to trick a man into getting you pregnant, we had a hand in that, we made choices, and condoms do actually break. But that shit is shady. Fortunately, she’s not a woman who takes her shit out on her kids. Not sure what she could do to us, since the only thing either of us got with her that matters is our kids.”