Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
I sighed, feeling something inside my chest tighten into resolve.
If he wanted me to do it, then I would.
“Get ready, because the moment that I press charges, shit’s going to hit the fan,” I told him softly.
Tyler raised one hand and tucked my hair back behind my ear with gentle fingers. “And when it does, I’ll have a couple of heavy-duty, shit repelling umbrellas ready.”
I couldn’t help it.
I laughed.
“Now let’s go home and see what that beast of a dog did to my house after Johnny dropped him off today.”
“Groot,” I whispered against his throat. “His name is Groot.”
Chapter 19
All women want is everything from you at different moments but nothing at the same time.
-Tyler to one of his officers
Tyler
“I can’t take the dog to work with me,” I told her, vehemently against having that mutt anywhere near any of my shit that he hadn’t already ruined.
It’d been two weeks since the day Reagan was attacked and we had not seen Dusty once in town.
A lot of that, I was sure, had to do with the fact that every single police officer in town was now keeping an eye on him, not to mention every other person in town who knew what had happened.
Hell, even Rome came through every once in a while and when he did, it was no secret that he, too, was protective of Reagan.
Hell, even Reagan’s damn dog was protective of her.
Like right now.
He was leaning against her leg and Reagan had a foot braced behind her to stabilize herself against the sheer amount of weight Groot was forcing Reagan to hold up with one of her wimpy legs.
“You have to take him with you,” she ordered. “If you don’t, he’ll tear up something else. He just wants to be with us and you told me yourself that you didn’t have anything going on today.”
Those were the famous last words.
“Fine,” I muttered, looking down at the drooling mutt. “Let’s go.”
Groot’s ears perked up.
He’d grown substantially in the short amount of time that we’d had him and during that time, he’d grown into something that I honestly hadn’t expected.
He was still a puppy at this point—a large puppy. But when you say a puppy is large, most people wouldn’t think you were talking about a hundred and twenty pounds of large puppy. That wasn’t something you normally equated with a puppy who was six months old—give or take.
He was massive and he looked a little scary, if you didn’t know him that is.
Not to mention he was so protective of not just Reagan, but me as well, that I didn’t think Dusty would give him another chance to prove if he was or wasn’t.
He was that scary looking.
Which was why I’d wanted him with Reagan.
But, Reagan did have a point.
We’d taken the dog out a few weeks ago to the lake and he’d fallen in off the dock. Needless to say, both of us had waited for him to come up and we waited. And then we waited some more.
Finally, after it was apparent that not only was he not going to swim, but also that he didn’t even fuckin’ float, well, I had to go in after him.
Ever since, we’d been extremely careful about what he did and where he went—and today, since Reagan was going out on the boat with Theo—who was threatened with death if he let her out of his sight—Groot couldn’t go with her. We were just lucky that Groot had been able to just step out of the boat when Reagan was attacked, otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to save her if he’d had to swim.
Dammit all to hell.
“Fuck me,” I groaned.
But suddenly, it didn’t matter that I had to have that dog with me all day, because Reagan was in my arms, pressing her head against my chest and letting me know without words that she loved me.
We’d said the words quite a few times since the incident and every single time, I felt more and more until I felt like I was going to explode.
“Nothing is going to happen to me,” she promised. “Don’t worry.”
I wanted to believe her.
Really, I did.
But, unless I was watching her, or a few of the other people—like her father, Theo, Rome, Parker, Coke, Johnny or Rafe, or any of her pseudo uncles who I’d yet to meet—I worried.
Dusty wasn’t gone.
I knew that for certain.
A man like that, one who was used to getting his way, wouldn’t just back down.
He’d wait, bide his time and when we least expected it, he’d strike.
Which was what I was waiting for.
Two weeks was a long time to stew in your anger and plot and plan how you were going to make what you wanted to happen come true.
The icing on the cake was when the restraining order we’d submitted was kicked back from a judge saying the grounds that Reagan had requested weren’t warranted.