Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 75240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
That’s when I passed out.
I woke up confused.
My mind was a hazy, cloudy reminder that something wasn’t right.
“Honey,” a woman’s angry voice said. “If you make me hold that kid, I will drop it on the floor.”
“Bitch,” the man mumbled. “She’s cute. Almost as cute as her sister, Haley.”
My eyes snapped open when what I was supposed to be remembering finally moved to the forefront of my mind.
My baby!
That man was holding my baby. First.
My baby!
“Give her to me,” I demanded, staring at the man that I hated with my whole entire being.
Troy walked across the room and placed her in my arms, being sure to touch me inappropriately as he did.
What had I ever seen in him?
Granted, he was a good-looking guy, but nothing to fight with another woman over. Not someone I would ever want to have children with—though it was a little too late for that at this point.
Troy had been my first grown up relationship. He’d been my first love. My first everything.
But I hadn’t been his first. Hell, I hadn’t even been his only.
Jade was the other woman. The woman who Troy had chosen over me.
Jade was also my step-sister. Haley was their daughter together.
Troy had known that I didn’t get along with Jade. What I hadn’t known was that he was fucking her at the same time he was fucking me. Which had been the deciding factor in why I’d stopped chasing after him.
At first I’d fancied myself in love with him; but, over time, as I’d calmed down from what had been done to me, I’d come to realize that I wasn’t in love with him, but in love with the idea of him.
Troy was a football coach at the local high school. He was charismatic, funny, and an all-around pleasant guy…on the outside.
On the inside, he was an asshole.
“She’s a cute kid,” he said. “I can’t wait for her to meet her sister.”
The woman behind him gagged, and I reluctantly let my eyes drift her way.
The woman—Jade—was not my biggest fan. Hell, but I wasn’t hers either. Although, I guess, I had more right to that than she did.
She’d won the man and I’d lost him.
Not that I was too upset about that. In fact, if I had to be honest, I was ecstatic that Troy had chosen her.
Had I known about her beforehand, I wouldn’t have gotten into the position where a baby would have even been possible. But I didn’t know and I did get into that position, along with several others. So here I am with a baby daddy I loathe, but a precious baby girl who is burrowing her way into my heart, one soft, sweet baby’s breath at a time.
“Get out.”
“No,” Troy refused.
“If you don’t get out, I’m going to call the nurse.”
“How are you going to do that?” he asked, ripping the call light from my fingers and baring his teeth at me.
I narrowed my eyes.
“I don’t have to call him,” I smiled. “He’s already here.”
At first, I wasn’t too excited about having a male nurse.
Now, though, I was one hundred percent satisfied with my service.
Even more so after he took one look at my face, and kicked both of them out and refused to let them back in.
“It was the court order that allowed him to be there for the birth,” Jason, my nurse protector, said. “It says nothing about him being here afterward.”
***
7 months later
“Oh, my God,” I moaned to myself. “He’s back.”
Dammit! Why did he have to be so good-looking?
“What was that?” July asked from her perusal of her paint samples.
July flipped houses with her husband. Her hunky firefighter husband who had a lot of hunky firefighter friends.
One certain hunky firefighter had been demanding my attention for a long freakin’ time now. Months, I’d been fighting off his advances. Months, I’d had to remind myself how freakin’ hard it was to deal with men like him.
The hunky firefighter even had a sexy name: Bowe.
God, was he beautiful.
Rock hard muscles stuffed into a tight navy blue Kilgore Fire Department t-shirt had me drooling.
Almost.
It wouldn’t do to let July know that I was attracted to him.
She’d then try to set me up, and a man was the last thing I needed on my plate at that moment in time. Though even without knowledge of my infatuation, she tried constantly to set Bowe and I up.
Pairing that with his constant prodding for me to date him, and I was nearly lost.
I’d been managing to avoid taking the plunge for a long time now, but one day I’d likely give in and hope that he was gentle with me.
“Nothing,” I muttered. “I need to go.”
July grinned. “Thank you for your help today.”
I waved back. “No problem.”
The moment I made it out the door, I slipped to the side yard in hopes of avoiding Bowe.