Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
She puffed that out of the side of her mouth toward me like it was a secret.
“Now we’re talking.” Logan bobbed his head in encouragement.
“I’ve heard it’s all due to the fact he has a really big…” She paused, her blue eyes wide and emphatic. “Ego. A really big ego.”
She cracked up like it was hysterical.
He kissed the top of her head, though he growled like I couldn’t hear, “Keep it up, Tessa, and I’m putting you in the shower under cold water. I’m trying to impress the prettiest girl here, can’t you see?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she gasped. “She is really pretty, though. I think we should keep her.”
Rattled, I shifted my feet.
She lifted that bottle. “Champagne?”
“Oh, most definitely,” I said.
She moved in, wrapped her arm around my waist, and led me deeper into the kitchen. “Don’t worry, Aster, we’re going to be the best of friends. I know these things.” She knocked her hip into mine. “Mad love. Mad, mad love. Just wait and see.”
So it turned out Tessa was kind of insane. Crazy and fun and impossible not to like.
Because it was all genuine. The care she showed for everyone around her. Even if she didn’t know someone, she made them feel like she did.
Especially me.
I sipped at my flute of champagne while she danced in the kitchen with Eden in some kind of horrible ballet/break dancing routine to the beat of “SexyBack”.
Nothing like a little JT.
Tessa scattered the crowd crushed in the space and did the worm across the floor.
I didn’t think I’d ever laughed so hard in my life.
Didn’t think I’d ever felt so perfectly right when she popped back up and took my hand and spun me around.
Didn’t think I’d ever felt so free than when she slung her arm around my shoulders like we were a pair, the woman talking to Salem who’d joined us on the other side, Eden in front of us, this whole thing so casual, no pretenses.
As if I could be a part of them.
Jud, Salem, and Juni were ushered into the middle of the mayhem and were presented with a bouquet of black helium balloons.
Jud helped Juni pop one.
Blue confetti fluttered out.
“A boy! We get a boy!” Juni shouted, and she threw herself around her mom’s neck, hugging her tight. Jud wrapped himself around both of them. He leaned down and kissed his wife, and I saw Salem’s eyes were filled with tears.
He kissed them away, murmured something none of us could hear.
So tender.
So sweet.
I had to look away.
My eyes tangled with Logan’s where he leaned against the counter three feet away next to Trent.
Malachite.
Stony green that sparked with flecks of gold.
His hands were in his pockets, and he had an ankle crossed over the other. This sexy casualness rolled from him in waves that tied my stomach in a needy knot.
Hot and blinding.
But it was his expression that did me in.
The soft affection that played and danced, the tiniest tweak of a warm smile kissing the edge of his mouth all mixed with old understanding.
My spirit lit.
Caught in his energy.
In this gravity.
All while my brain kept warning I was being a fool.
Heedless.
I could feel the tendrils of my spirit weaving into the fabric of these people, and when I pulled them loose, they were going to snap.
Break.
Still, I mouthed, Happy birthday, as he gazed over at me.
That time he did smile. This slow satisfaction taking over the gorgeous, defined angles of his face when he mouthed back, The best.
I jolted when Eden was suddenly in front of me, her voice a little panicked. “Can you hold her for a second?”
I didn’t have time to refuse before she set Baby Kate in my arms.
I froze, and my heart rose to my throat. The knot was so huge it clotted off air.
I tried not to look, not to turn my attention down on the precious little face that stared up at me. Her eyes were so dark they were nearly black, her cheeks pink and her nose tiny, her mouth curled in the sweetest, crooked smile.
My chest clutched, and my arms shook, and I held her to me probably a little too tightly, scared that I would hurt her. That I would harm her.
Emotion burned, a flashfire through my veins, and I knew I was messed up.
Scarred with no hope of recovery.
I couldn’t even hold an infant without having a panic attack. Without wanting to hold on tighter while simultaneously wanting to jerk my arms away.
Eden returned, laughing under her breath. “Sorry about that, I needed to refill the ranch dip.”
She took her daughter back without the knowledge that in the one minute I’d been holding the child, I’d been scourged.
Because being here? In this town? In this place with this man?
It ripped off the scab of everything I’d fought for years to suppress.