Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 68576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Which meant the little boy in his arms jolted awake, too.
Forest always woke silently, and never cried—fucking Emory.
I might never forgive her for hitting me with her car, but I certainly wanted to murder her in cold blood for how she treated her son.
“You remember,” he said.
“I remember,” I confirmed, reaching out my hand for Forest but stopping when I saw. “How long have you been sleeping here?”
“For days,” he shrugged.
“And Forest?”
Did he hear the longing in my voice?
I wanted them closer.
But I was scared that I looked as hideous as I felt.
“Forest has been a trooper.” He moved, reading my mind. “Mom comes to get him in the morning, and either Dad or one of my brothers bring him back to me when he gets out of school.”
“You’ve been here since it happened?” I gasped.
The gasp made my entire body jolt, causing a significant amount of pain.
“Here,” he placed Forest on my bed. “Stay here, buddy. I’m going to get a nurse.”
Atlas was gone, leaving me with Forest.
He stared at me.
“Hey, buddy,” I said. “I missed you.”
“Miss ooo, Peppa.” He leaned forward and crash landed on my chest.
Pain—two different types, both physical and spiritual—rocketed through me.
I breathed through the pain, though, because there was nothing better in this world than Forest hugs… unless you counted Atlas hugs. But to be honest, those were a very close second.
I was so absorbed in the hug that I didn’t hear Atlas come back in until I felt a soft touch on my cheek.
I opened my eyes to find Atlas standing over the bed, his eyes… full of tears.
“I love you so much, Pepper,” he breathed.
Then Forest jerked up and slammed his head into Atlas’s mouth.
“Love hurts sometimes,” I teased when he wiped away blood.
He threw his head back and laughed.
Forest laughed with him.
3 months after the accident
Learning how to walk again was for the birds.
I sat down heavily, my eyes filling with tears.
“I’m never going to get it.” I sniffled.
Forest walked over to me and stopped at the end of the bars across the space from me.
He stared at me with those big brown eyes just like his daddy’s and said, “Come here, Mama.”
Tears.
There were copious amounts of tears.
It’d taken me three days after waking from my coma to regain all of my memories.
It’d taken me six weeks to get all of my casts off.
It was now three months later and though I was closer than I had been, I still felt like walking might never happen.
At least the kind of walking I used to do.
“Come on, Princess,” Maven ordered. “You have to try. You’re getting married in three months, and you want to walk down the aisle to your man, right?”
She was not wrong.
Three days ago, Atlas had gotten tired of me stalling for time when it came to marrying him, and he’d declared that our wedding day would be three months from last Thursday.
That put me at a March wedding.
“I think he should change it,” I grumbled. “It rains a lot in March.”
Shayne snorted. “It rains, yes. But your wedding is inside.”
That was true.
“I’m scared I won’t be able to walk,” I breathed.
“Then I’ll carry you.”
I looked up to find Atlas there.
I knew he would be.
I mean, Forest didn’t arrive on his own.
“I don’t want you to carry me,” I grumbled, standing up again with the physical therapist’s help.
Linda, my PT, lifted me using the belt around my waist.
I walked to the end of the bar.
It was hard.
It was stupidly hard.
But I did it.
And I’d keep doing it.
For them.
ATLAS
6 months after the accident
I stood at the end of the aisle.
My heart was pounding.
It wasn’t pounding because I was about to get married and sign my life away—I’d gladly give my life for hers a million times over.
No, it was pounding because I was standing in the middle of an open field with all of my brothers on one side, all of Pepper’s brothers on the other, and she was walking down the aisle on her father’s arm.
Her father who looked like he was with it today.
Thank God.
That’d been her one and only want throughout this entire process.
She wanted her father to walk her down the aisle.
She didn’t care where we had it, when we had it, or who was there.
She just wanted to be walked down the aisle by her father.
What did I want?
I wanted to marry her.
As long as she was happy with everything, I didn’t care how she got there. As long as she said ‘I do’ at the end of the day.
My smile had to have been huge as she started walking—yes, walking—toward me.
It’d been a very long road.
Forest, who’d been our ring bearer, leaned into my side, babbling happily about what I thought was princesses.
He’d gotten a whole lot easier to understand in the last six months—whether that was because he was bigger now or because I was able to translate baby alien—so I could tell he was comparing her to a Disney princess in her white, puffy gown.