Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Embarrassed that I’m such an awkward gawker that my ten-year-old noticed, I ruffle her hair before endeavoring to keep my focus on the cause of her stomachache. “Your tummy is sore because you ate birthday cake for breakfast.” I push back her curls and check her for a temperature to be sure a gluttonous diet is the cause of her sickness. Her forehead feels warm but not scorching hot. “I told you too much sugar is bad for you.”
She folds her arms in front of her chest and huffs. “Mrs. Lichard said the same thing when I packed leftover cake for lunch.”
“Tillie…”
“It was fresher than the bread, and I didn’t want it to go to waste.” Portions of the child I raised hide behind the glint of indulgence in her eyes when she adds, “I know how much you spent on it. I saw the price list at the bakery last week when Mrs. Lichard paid the final payment for you.” Her chin balances on her chest, her loved-up gleam nowhere to be seen. “You shouldn’t have spent so much on me.”
Her quivering bottom lip breaks my heart. “But you loved that cake.”
“I did…” She grips her stomach as the color her cheeks have held for only half a minute drains. “But it doesn’t taste as good coming up as it did going down.”
When she rapidly swallows, I race for the door, snatch up the bucket Ark left there, and then bolt back to her bed with only half a second to spare.
“Mo-Mommy,” Tillie cries through a hiccup when the brutal heaves surging through her body spring tears into her eyes. She hates being sick almost as much as she hates when I am right. “I shouldn’t have eaten so much cake.”
“You’re okay, sweetheart. Mommy is right here.” I gesture for her to scoot over before joining her on her bed, completely forgetting that I have an unexpected visitor waiting for me in my kitchen.
Desperate to take Tillie’s focus off the mess in the bucket, I ask, “What will John think when he finds out you went and got yourself a new crush?”
“I think he’ll be okay,” she replies through a yawn. “Because I don’t want Ark to be my boyfriend…” Her eyes express the words she’s too afraid to speak.
I want him to be yours.
6
MARA
By the time I have Tillie settled, the bucket is half-full, and my neck is kinked. I sling my legs off a bed too small for two, stretch out, and then release a big breath. Signs of the fatigue headache that threatened to surface half the day are nowhere near as bad now. They’ve almost entirely vanished, which is surprising considering the unusual smell in the air.
My body is weird. It can handle inhaling chemically laced cleaning products all day, but something as simple as too much basil on a croissant instigates a migraine.
When I take a whiff of the peculiar scent, my brows stitch. It’s not a smell I’ve sampled before. It isn’t sweet like the slosh in the bottom of the bucket, more pungent like burning hair or… green beans?
My heart leaps when the fire alarm sounds half a second later.
Tillie is so heavily asleep that my launch off her bed doesn’t wake her. She snuggles deeper into her pillow as I race in the direction from which the rancid scent is coming.
I’m taken aback for the second time in under a minute when my entrance into the kitchen doesn’t bring me face-to-face with an unmanageable inferno.
A six-foot-three hunk with his sleeves rolled to his elbows and his brows furled, though—there’s one of them.
Ark’s eyes shoot to mine when my shadow falls over the saucepan blooming enough smoke to warrant multiple windows and a door being opened. Guilt is hardening his features. It’s barely seen through his embarrassment, though.
“I was trying to make Tillie some soup.” He grimaces while taking in the product, which is burned to the bottom of the pot. “It’s been a while since I’ve cooked. I only remembered that after I started cooking.”
I almost laugh at the sheer disgust on his face that he is incapable of heating a can of premade soup, but the tea towel he’s using to fan smoke out the open kitchen window catching fire stops me.
The setting of my ancient oven is too high.
Flames are licking the edges of the saucepan instead of heating its base.
Ark tugs the tea towel away from the stovetop when he notices the flames. “Shit. I swear I am trying to help.”
“In the sink,” I shout when his flap almost causes the curtains to set alight. “Put it in the sink.”
He hooks the tea towel into the sink like his business shirt is a pitcher’s jersey as I tug up the faucet. I blast the flames with bitterly cold water before shifting my focus to the cause of its incineration.