Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 719(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
“What kind of plans you got, my Mr. Cody?” Maddie piped in from the backseat.
She said it like she’d had no clue what we were talking about, her voice eager and excited, the way it’d been the entire trip, though she’d finally settled down over the last ten minutes since the ride was taking longer than she’d understood that it would.
Cody glanced at her through the rearview mirror. “The plan is we’re about to introduce you to some new friends, and you’re going to have a blast.”
“I love that plan!” she yelled.
Cody chuckled, and he squeezed my fingers some more as he glanced over at me. “What do you think of that plan, Hailey? Do you think we’re going to have a blast?”
There was a tease to it. A gentle ribbing. A nudging toward what was hanging out in the periphery waiting on me to let go.
I shifted to look between him and my daughter. “I think it’s going to be the best day ever.”
“Now that sounds like a solid plan,” Cody said.
“Yes!” Maddie shouted, throwing a little fist in the air.
Dust billowed behind us as Cody drove his truck down the dirt lane that wound through the outbuildings of the ranch, and he eased all the way around to park next to another large truck and a white Volvo with a Time River Market & Café logo in the back window.
“Are my new friends already here?” Maddie asked, squirming and yanking at the straps of her car seat.
“It looks like everyone is just getting here, don’t you fret, Button,” Cody told her.
“Then let me out!”
“I’ve got you, little one,” he promised.
He hopped out of the driver’s side and moved to open the back door. He leaned in and unbuckled Maddie then swooped her out and into his arms like he did it every day.
Like he was happy to do it.
Like he was purposed to do it.
Nerves thundered my pulse.
This was so different.
So new.
And it felt so good and right and I was terrified that I was setting us both up for destruction.
Because I was sure this kind of breaking would be the unbearable kind.
Because my heart ached just looking at the two of them.
But I didn’t want to let reservations get in the way.
I didn’t want to hide or shutter.
I wanted to open myself to this—whatever it meant or wherever it was going to lead.
Was it selfish though?
Bringing him into this?
We’d already seen exactly what happened when I did, the fading bruises on his face proof of that. But he’d sworn that he wanted to be here for us, and I had to trust in that. Believe in him when for so long I’d stopped believing in anyone.
Cody came around the back of the truck with Maddie hooked to his side. Her little arms were wrapped around his neck.
“Hurry it up, slow poke! I got friends to meet.”
Cody widened his eyes. “That’s right, hurry it up, slow poke.”
“Someone’s awful anxious.”
“Me!” Maddie threw her arms high, and affection was rushing wide, radiating from both Cody and me.
Reaching out, he took my hand and brushed my knuckles across his lips.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he mumbled there.
Affection bound my chest in a fist.
“Me, too,” I whispered back.
It was foolish, but I was.
I wanted to be here.
With him.
He led us behind the few cars that were parked in a row toward the gathering of people on a sprawling lawn that extended out from in front of the mansion.
He didn’t let me go as we walked below the rays of the sun, though Maddie wiggled to get down.
The second her feet hit the ground, the child beelined in the direction of a group of kids who were playing beneath a giant tree on the far side of the lawn, wild curls billowing behind her as she went.
Her voice carried as she sang, “Hi! I’m Maddie. Are you my brand-new friends?”
Cody chuckled as we ambled along. “There isn’t a shy bone in her body, is there?”
“Not even one,” I told him.
“She is something, Hailey.” His voice went low.
My ribs clenched around my hammering heart. “She’s everything.”
His hand tightened on mine. “You both are.”
Everything pulsed.
Squeezed and sped and made me weak in the knees.
I tried to clear it away when Paisley suddenly stood from one of the chairs that surrounded a patio table beneath a couple of big blue umbrellas.
“Hails Bells, get your cute butt over here.”
“I’m already on my way,” I called back.
She was all grins, though I watched her attention dip to where Cody had his hand wound in mine.
How much had changed since I’d met him.
There was no question left that we were together.
Dakota and Savannah shifted around.
Shock widened their eyes, and an uncertainty rippled through the hot air.
Cody didn’t cringe or shirk.
He just pulled me closer and leaned in to kiss the top of my head, muttering, “Prepare yourself for the inquisition.”