Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 141255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
But it felt like as soon as I did finally fall asleep, I was woken up. Tommy was thrashing in bed beside me, having a bad dream.
I backed out of the bed and started to call his name, seeing it was a bad one and knowing from recent experiences, particularly the one where he grabbed my throat and squeezed until I started to turn blue, that keeping my distance until he was fully awake was important.
He rocketed upright and after a split second he seemed lucid and then apologized for waking me.
“It’s okay. You okay?”
“Yeah, baby,” he breathed out hoarsely.
“Wanna tell me?”
“Nope, it’s okay; go to sleep.” He got out of bed and left the room.
He woke me up at dawn with sweet kisses on my earlobe and warm minty breath whispering my name in a husky voice. “Wake up, wife. We have plans today.”
I stretched. “What plans?”
“We need to see a man about a hog,” he said.
I smiled big. “Are we going to the loft?”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Even better than that.”
I got up and excitedly dashed for the shower. What could be better than that?
9
Angel and me were taking a walk after going out for lunch near my building and we were holding hands. She was smiling at me, laughing at a story I was telling her about one of my Viking cousins and how I’d gone over a year ago to be in his wedding and we lost the guy during his bachelor party and wound up finding him only 2 hours before the wedding, still drunk as a skunk, wandering outside in his underwear. Her laughter was gorgeous. Her eyes were lit up and she had a huge smile on her face. She looked carefree.
“Is it beautiful there? I’d love to go. I’ve always wanted to do loads of traveling.”
“It is. We should go.” I smiled and squeezed her hand. Suddenly she paled. We were walking by a crowded restaurant patio and she froze in her tracks.
“What’s the matter?” I frowned.
She shook it off and resumed walking.
“You okay?”
“Uh huh,” she replied but she clearly was not. I was hoping this wasn’t another panic attack coming on in the middle of the street.
“Tell me,” I said, eyeing her seriously and giving her hand a squeeze.
“I thought I saw someone I used to know. It probably wasn’t them. It’s okay.”
“Where? Who?”
She dared to glance back over her shoulder and then visibly relaxed. “I don’t see them now. I must’ve been mistaken.”
“You sure? You’re all right?”
She took a big breath and beamed at me. “Yes. I’m sure.”
“Who was it?”
She shook her head, still smiling, not wanting to tell me. I glared. She was not about to get away with a dazzling smile to get me to let it go.
“Now, baby,” I insisted.
Her smile slipped.
“Jason,” she replied softly. “The guy who asked me to marry him in Thailand. But it wasn’t him, obviously.” She shrugged.
I thought I’d seen him at a table for two sitting alone, looking right at me over a menu. I’d been afraid to look back, afraid to find out whether or not it’d really been him. But when I looked back there was no one there. That table was empty. Either it was a lookalike, or my mind was playing tricks on me.
I pushed away thoughts of him and just focused on the footsteps Dare and I were taking, heading back toward his building. He didn’t go back to his funny story; instead he was quiet the rest of the walk back and the vibe coming off him was tense.
As the doors closed inside the elevator, Dare’s phone made a sound. When he read the text, his expression dropped.
“Awe shit,” he grumbled.
“Everything okay?”
“No. That was Tess. They took Lisa to the hospital. She started bleeding. Had a miscarriage.”
“Oh no.” My stomach dipped and I felt cold envelop me. Lisa would be devastated. Absolutely gutted. My hand covered my mouth.
“Can we go see her?”
“We’ll go tomorrow. Give her today. Okay?” He was replying to the text, his jaw tight.
I nodded.
We got to the apartment and he went to work in his den for a bit. I curled up in bed and watched TV but thought about Lisa. Poor Lisa. She wanted that baby so badly, was already in love with the idea of being a mother before she’d even started to show.
Poor Shayla.
I pulled up the driveway at the farm and watched Tia’s face as the house came into view.
“Oh, my goodness!” Tia exclaimed, “Holy shit!”
We stopped in front of the house and she threw the car door open, giddy with excitement. She ran toward the front steps.
Just before we left to go get married, I met with a contractor and went over specs with him to fix up the farmhouse. When I planned it I didn’t know when we’d be back here but knew that whenever we did I’d be bringing her up here. She called it our ‘happy place’.