Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 64910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 325(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Shine being here would put that in jeopardy. Maybe in a few months, when our baby was born, and I was one hundred percent sure that I’d won Dory over, then I’d start allowing them back into our lives.
But until then… no.
They’d all have to wait.
Because Dory would always come first for me.
“What do you think about the name Harker?” she asked softly.
I frowned. “Harker’s kind of odd, isn’t it?”
I’d never heard it before.
She smiled. “I wanted to stay with the Crow/Raven/Dracula theme y’all inadvertently have going. Or you do anyway. Harker was a character off of the old Dracula movies. Jonathan Flynn Harker. I was thinking Harker Flynn Crow as a name.”
The fact that she wanted to name our child after me in some form or fashion made a place inside my heart start to repair. Something I’d broken when I’d allowed her to think she didn’t matter to me.
“I like it,” I admitted. “I like it a lot.”
“I know it’s odd,” she agreed. “But Bram is odd, too. So I was thinking it would be a perfect fit. But don’t say yes just yet, all right? Wait until you feel the name out. We have time.”
“Time,” I teased, “is becoming less and less with each week that passes. But I agree to your terms. I’ll sit on it for the next few days and get back to you.”
She jerked her head toward the bacon. “Your bacon needs turned.”
So it did.
• • •
Hours later, exhausted beyond belief, and fairly sure that if I didn’t catch a few ZZZs soon, I would be extremely short with everyone, even my boss who’d been super accommodating, I was sitting in the driveway on my bike staring at the front door.
I was waiting for Dory to pull in, but she’d stopped to talk to our elderly neighbor down the road that was out walking her dog.
They were talking about some man that she’d seen today, but each time she’d glance back at me nervously, as if she was scared of me.
So I’d gone around them on my bike and parked in the driveway, only to stare at them like an even bigger creeper.
Rationally, I knew that the old lady wouldn’t be doing anything to Dory. But that didn’t mean that whichever sick fuck had decided to get his rocks off on our new car wouldn’t come up.
So there I sat, even though I’d rather collapse into the recliner with Dory plastered to my side.
“Yo.”
I glanced beyond where Dory and the old broad were talking to see Wake walking down the street with his dog, Tex, on a leash in front of him. Tex was straining to get to the old lady’s dog, but Wake wasn’t allowing him an inch.
“Hey, Wake.” Dory waved.
If I’d thought that the old lady’s reaction to me was comical, seeing her look at Wake, who was a known felon, was even better.
She visibly recoiled at the sight of him and moved to where she was standing with the large brick mailbox between them.
Wake ignored her as he kept walking. “Your husband here yet?”
“He’s sitting there on his bike watching and listening to every word,” she said. “See?”
Wake looked up to find me doing exactly that and grinned.
“I see,” Wake said as he kept walking toward us.
Tex, the overly large Golden Retriever, sighted in on his next target. Me. Meaning he started to pull harder because he might actually get to get some pets as he was used to me doing with him.
“Hey there, Tex,” I called to him.
Wake let the leash go, and the fat Golden waddled toward me excitedly.
“Bit hot out here for a dog of his size to be walking, isn’t it? Plus, you came the long way,” I asked.
It wasn’t too long or too hot for Wake, who was in immaculate shape. But it was a bit much for poor Tex who was out of breath and panting.
“Tex needs to lose some weight,” Wake admitted as he walked into the yard and immediately offered me his hand. When I took it and released it, he went on. “My sister doted on him. But it isn’t healthy for him. So I’m trying to make it to where he gets some walks in multiple times a day. Though, just sayin’, but it’s not like I don’t have the fuckin’ time to walk multiple times a day.”
I raised a brow at him. “I thought you were going to start a construction business?”
He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I did. And am. But nobody wants an ex-con in their house, apparently. Or building them one. So now I’m just twiddling my thumbs.” He paused. “It’s not like I don’t have the cash to live off of, though. So I’ll wait.”
Apparently, before Wake had done time in prison, he’d been in real estate starting at the age of twenty-one. From there, he’d started building houses.