Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 110694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
“Hello.” She paused and scrunched her nose. “Mommy is in the bathwoom.”
Burl cleared his throat behind me, masking a chuckle.
The kid was fucking cute. She was going to be a beauty, like her momma. The unease that she might be mine and the males in her future rattled me. I hadn’t thought about that. What if I had a daughter? Especially one who was going to grow up to look like her mother. Fuck. I’d end up murdering teenage boys with my bare hands.
“I’m watching SpongeBob,” she informed me. “And I don’t nawmally get to watch that show. Mommy says it’s wude and ’noxious.” Her eyes were big and round as she shared that information with me. “But theah isn’t anything else for me to watch.”
She couldn’t say her r’s.
She turned her gaze to Burl. “Who awah you?”
“He’s a friend of mine. A doctor, and he just needs to swab the inside of your cheek,” I told her.
She tilted her tiny body as she peered around me, trying to get a better look at Burl. Her smile had dropped immediately when I said the word doctor. Her brows puckered. “You don’t look like a doctow,” she told him. “You look like a cowboy.”
This time, Burl did laugh.
The door to the bathroom opened, and my eyes swung up from the kid to the woman walking out. Long legs, the perfect flare to her hips, narrow waist, and tits. Jesus Christ, the set of tits on her. Then, all those pale blonde locks draped over her bare shoulders, curling just over her cleavage. My hands were clenched so tightly that I could feel my short nails biting into my palms. It seemed my cock didn’t care that she might have lied and intended to keep a child she’d had without my knowledge from me. It just wanted to fuck her again.
“Vivi Lu!” she called out. “You know better than to open a door without me.”
The little girl spun around so fast that her blonde curls floated around her head. “But we awn’t at home. We awe at a motel,” she explained as if that made all the difference.
Branwen placed a hand on her hip, and I fought the urge to look at the small sliver of flat, tanned stomach that the shirt she was wearing flashed. The hem didn’t quite meet the waist of her blue linen shorts. “That rule goes for wherever we are. It’s dangerous. Someone bad could be on the other side and snatch you.”
I liked that she wasn’t sugarcoating it. The kid was too fucking adorable for her own good. She needed to be aware that she couldn’t trust people.
“I’m sowwy, Mommy.” She sounded remorseful. “But it wasn’t a bad guy. It was just Mista Outlaw, and he bwought a doctow that looks like a cowboy.”
Branwen’s light-green eyes lifted to me. I wondered if they would be so damn striking without that dark rim around the pale jade color. Why was I thinking about this? It didn’t fucking matter.
I tore my eyes off her and stepped inside so that Burl could follow me.
“This is Dr. Burl,” I told her, closing the door behind him.
When I didn’t say more, Burl moved farther into the room.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I heard him say.
“Uh, yes, I’m, uh, Branwen Hester, and this is my daughter, Stevie,” she replied. Her voice reminded me of a smooth, expensive whiskey.
Her last name was bothering me. It was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. When I had read it on the marriage certificate yesterday, I’d paused and tried to think of where I had heard it before. Not that it mattered. Highly unlikely the two were connected. It was just a surname.
“What is a swab?” Stevie demanded.
I smirked at the way her expression suddenly looked fierce.
“It won’t hurt,” her mother quickly informed her, bending her knees and lowering herself until her eyes were level with her daughter’s. She took the girl’s hands in hers. “I promise. This is quick and easy. When it’s over, we can go back to the park we found yesterday. Have another picnic and feed the ducks.”
The little girl looked from her mother back to Burl. “But I’m not sick. Why is a doctow hewah?”
The pink tip of Branwen’s tongue came out and licked her lips quickly, and she took a deep breath. I assumed she was trying to think up a lie to tell the kid.
“You’re right. You aren’t sick. But…” She paused, and the fear in her eyes gave away shit that only made me question this.
I could stop it. Let them go and forget about all of it. Sign the fucking papers. Never know.
There was only one reason she would be scared. And that reason would change my life. Immediately. It would change theirs too. If I let it. That was up to me. Branwen had already made it clear that she had no problem not knowing who the father of her child was. That, or she knew and wanted to keep it a secret.