Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131916 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
So hard and fast that when I did finally strike the ground, it would be rock bottom. Because right then I couldn’t fathom a scenario when I wasn’t right here, surrounded by this care and easiness.
By the laughter and the teases.
By the heat that radiated from River on hot gusts of air. The way it’d crawl over me each time our legs brushed under the stool, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“Do you like the orange chicken, Miss Charleigh? I bet you like it as much as I do!” Nolan asked, wholly immune to the fact that each word that came from his mouth knitted me in comfort.
Each one weaving through my loss and pain, stitching the pieces back together as if they could become one.
I took another bite and struggled to swallow around the thickness in my throat. “I think it’s delicious.”
“You think we got the same taste buds?”
A soggy giggle escaped me.
I guessed I was enraptured.
Taken.
Mesmerized.
“We might.”
“One thing’s for sure, I have amazing taste because I picked you for my best friend.” Raven enthused it around a big bite of Lo Mein before she pointed her fork in my direction.
“Hey, I picked her, too, Auntie.”
“Not even, Nolan. I was the one who saw her passing by on the sidewalk, and I chased her down so I could meet her. That means I picked her first.”
“Well, I picked her second,” Nolan mumbled around a bite of eggroll.
An almost inaudible growl emanated from River, and I nearly came out of my skin when he set his hand on the top of my thigh and squeezed. He leaned in and pressed his mouth to my ear, words so low as they raked across my cheek. “Nah. I saw you first. Wanted you first. Think that means you’re mine.”
There was no shaking the single word from my brain through the rest of dinner.
Mine.
I couldn’t be.
He’d already warned me it would never be that way, and I knew I would likely never stay.
But God, I wanted to sink into the idea. The idea of doing this every night. Sharing a meal with these people.
With this family.
Nolan had climbed to his knees on his stool, and he straightened, rubbing his belly while he pushed it out as far as he could. “Look it, Miss Charleigh. I ate all my dinner and now I’m all the way full.”
I could do nothing but poke it with my finger. “What? I think you could fit way more in there.”
He gasped and shrieked and grabbed at my hand. “Well, I gotta save a little spot because it’s movie night, and I gotta have popcorn with my movie. Right, Daddy-O?”
I glanced over at River. My stomach tilted. The man was so viciously handsome it was painful to look at him.
“Thursday night is movie night, yeah.”
I glanced between them all. “Every Thursday?”
“Yep! Because I really like movies but I gotta limit my screen time.”
My spirit swam, and I tried to make sense of how this man who was lined in brutal bone and written in grisly ink made sure that this little boy limited his screen time.
Raven pushed her stool back with a screech of the legs and a chuckle from her throat. “River likes Disney flicks more than any of us. He’ll never admit it, but he’s nothing but a big softie.”
His dark eyes narrowed. “Nothin’ soft about me.”
Giggling, she waltzed over, carrying her plate and wine, and planted a kiss on top of his head. “Nothing but that melty heart of yours.”
Another grunt.
She cracked up like it was hysterical. “See. So sensitive.”
Irritation flashed through his expression, and I tried to hide the laugh that rolled up my throat.
“Watch yourself,” he said. That warning was for me, stealing the air from my lungs.
Raven tittered, enjoying the show too much. “All right, I’m going to toss these plates into the dishwasher really quick, then we can do this thing.”
“Yes!” Nolan shouted, and he climbed onto his feet and jumped off the stool, landing in a chaotic thud on the ground. “Let’s do this thing!”
“Nolan, you know the rules. No jumping off the furniture. You forget the last time you took a tumble and knocked your tooth out?” River asked him as he wiped his mouth with a napkin.
Nolan shrugged. “Well, I got to meet my Miss Charleigh that day, so I think it was a good sacrifice. That’s what love’s all about, right, Dad? Sacrifice? My dad told me that.”
On the last, the child looked at me.
My stomach ached.
My heart ached.
My body ached.
Ached in the best of ways.
God. I was being an idiot. Getting so cozy like this. Acting as if I might be able to carve a spot for myself in their lives.
Giggling, Raven lifted her brows at River. “How are you going to argue with that?”
River was shaking his head as he stood and began to gather the empty boxes, the man so big beside me, the muscles of his arms bristling as he leaned around me to reach for a box in the middle of the island.