Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 148(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 148(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Chapter 11
Greer
My girl looks thoroughly worn out by the time I set her inside my truck. I wrap the seatbelt around her, and she gives me a sated smile.
I send a quick text to my brothers, letting them know that I’m taking Evie to my place and to bring the boys back home. That’s what my house is now—it’s home, all thanks to Evie and her two brothers.
On the drive back to the farm, I hold Evie’s hand. With the windows rolled down and a soft country song on the radio, the night feels damn near perfect. The only thing that could make it better was if she were wearing my ring and carrying my kid.
I park the truck in my driveway and walk up the porch. The porch light is bathing her in a golden glow and the cicadas are just starting to sing their nightly love songs. I reach for my keys, still unable to get the idea of my Evie holding a baby out of my head. “I’ve got to ask you something. Back there, I was bare. Didn’t even cross my mind. Are you on birth control?”
“Yeah, I have been since…I was a teenager,” she says, finishing quietly. I know what she was going to say. She was going to call that fucker’s name. Spencer, the man that better pray he never meets me. He hurt her. He hurt the woman I love. He hurt her brothers too, boys I’m already starting to think of as my own.
She juts her chin at me. Her voice is strong and defiant when she speaks, “Even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t make it your problem, Greer.”
I invade her space, stepping close enough that she can read my expression. “Any child I happen to get you pregnant with would never be a problem. It’d be a blessing, a little miracle that I’d spend the rest of my life loving and protecting. Second, you don’t deal with anything on your own anymore. I’m here. I’m in this for the long haul.”
Her gaze fills with tears. “I’m not used to having someone to lean on.”
“Well, get used to it, sweet girl. Because your man isn’t going anywhere,” I promise her, meaning every word.
She swallows. “I keep waiting for you to walk away from me.”
“Never.” I cup her face. I want to tell her I love her, but I don’t think she’s ready for that just yet. “Nothing will ever make me walk away.”
She sniffs, and my phone dings with a text. “Check to see if it’s about the boys.”
I chuckle. “Yes, ma’am.”
The message is about the boys. “Noah says he’ll be dropping Chase and Parker off in about an hour. That gives us a few more minutes together. I have an idea of what we could do during that time.”
“You have a beautiful view out here,” Evie remarks as she sits beside me on the porch swing. She’s nestled into my side, looking up at the bright moon that’s illuminating the front yard.
I took her inside for a warm shower and gave her two orgasms during it. Now we’re waiting for her brothers. I want a thousand more nights with her just like this one, making love and holding her close.
“I used to come here when it got to be too much. There’s a stream just at the edge of my property. Something about it always calmed me. Helped me get my head on straight.” I can still remember the bewilderment and fear when I first arrived at the Maple Farm. My life before that had been about survival. I was too scared to believe that it could be filled with love and laughter and family.
“When it all got to be too much?” She asks.
The grief hits me in the chest again. Talking about him always makes it worse, but I want Evie to know about the man who shaped me. “My adoptive dad died when I was about seventeen. Maybe eighteen. Fuck, it’s hard to remember. The next few years all kind of blended together for us. It shattered our family.”
“I’m sorry you lost him,” she says quietly.
In my mind, I’m back there all those years ago. I’m a teenage kid trying to figure out how to navigate my grief and hold the family together. “Mom fell apart. He was her soulmate, and then one day, he was gone. You never think when someone you love is walking out the door, that it might be the last time. Might be your last chance to kiss them, tell them you love them. It kills me that I don’t remember what I said to him the day he died.”
“Since I was the oldest, I took over and kept the farm running. I never realized how strong he was until everyone was looking at me to fill his shoes.” All those long hours when we hung out together, I didn’t know it at the time, but he was teaching me what it meant to be a man. Giving me a blueprint I’d never had before.