Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 102016 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102016 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“Is she okay?” I ask, as soon as Bridger pulls the door open.
“Hello,” he replies, his brown eyes warm as he wraps his arm around my shoulders and leads me inside. “She’s great. Come on in, we’re making cookies.”
I blink in surprise. “You’re making cookies?”
“Sure. Doesn’t that make everyone feel better? Come hang out with us.” He winks at me as he closes the door, but before we cross to the kitchen, he pulls me against him and tips my chin up so he can kiss me softly. “Thanks for coming over.”
“Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away.”
He grins and seems to want to say more, but I pull back and head for the kitchen, where I find Birdie standing on a stool, stirring batter in a bowl.
“Birdie, look who’s here.”
“Hi, Miss Dani,” the little girl says with a grin. She looks perfectly fine. Her round cheeks are full of color, her dark hair is up in a ponytail, and she’s wearing the cutest apron I’ve ever seen. “We’re making peanut butter cookies.”
“Yum, those sound delicious. I like your apron.”
Birdie looks down at herself. “Daddy helped me tie-dye it.”
I eye the pinks and purples and then turn to Bridger, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Made a huge mess,” Bridger confirms as he joins his daughter and takes over the mixing. His forearms bunch as he grips the wooden spoon, and holy Moses, that’s a zing right to the vagina. “But it was fun. Right, peanut?”
“Yeah,” Birdie agrees, nodding. “Can we make the balls now?”
“I think it’s ready,” Bridger confirms.
“How can I help?” I ask.
“You sit.” My handsomer-than-should-be-legal boyfriend points at me with the business end of his spoon. “Just talk to us. We’ve got this covered.”
“What happened at the doctor?” I ask, but then shake my head. “Unless that’s none of my business, of course.”
“Hey.” I look up at Bridger, and he crooks his finger at me. “I changed my mind. Come here, sweetheart.”
Jumping off the stool, I round the island, and he turns to face me.
“She’s your business. I’m your business, just like you’re ours, so ask anything you want. Got it?”
“Sure, but why did I have to come all the way over here for this?”
His lips twitch, and then he bends down and kisses me. Not a little peck, but a full-blown, erase-my-mind-of-all-rational-thought kiss. His tongue nudges against the seam of my mouth, and I open for him and wrap my arms around his neck, clinging to him.
“Grown-up kisses are gross.” Birdie makes gagging noises, making us laugh as we pull apart, and I return to my stool. “Daddy said you’re going to kiss in front of me, but not all the time, okay?”
My eyes whip to the man in question. He told her?
“And Birdie’s very happy that you’re going to be spending more time with us,” Bridger agrees, smiling at me so sweetly, I want to climb over this island and go back to the kissing. “Right, peanut?”
“Yeah, you’re his girlfriend. You can stay the night.”
At that, I start to cough on my own spit, because I was not expecting that to come out of a five-year-old’s mouth.
“And Pickles can stay, too. So she’s not lonely,” Birdie adds, so matter-of-factly, as if she’s got it all sorted out.
She’s the cutest ever.
Bridger slides a glass of water over to me, that smile still firmly in place, and as I raise the glass to my mouth, he bites his lower lip, as if he’s trying to keep himself from laughing his butt off.
“Oh, this is funny, huh?”
He shakes his head, chuckling as he rolls peanut butter cookie balls between his palms and sets them on the cookie sheet. “You’re adorable. You should have seen your face. Anyway, now that we have all of that cleared up, Birdie saw Blake, and she’s got some sort of a bug. So, he gave her a breathing treatment and told her to lie low for a few days until it’s gone. No more running around.”
“I like to run around,” Birdie says with a frown. “I’m good at it.”
“You really are good at it,” I agree. “But you can hold off for a few days, and then you’ll be even better at it.”
“Does this mean I can’t go to dance class on Saturday?” Birdie asks her father, horror filling her brown eyes.
“Oh, you enrolled her? I’m so glad. I met Skyla, the owner, at Bee’s shop the other day, and she was so nice. And seriously beautiful.”
I frown down at my hands. I really shouldn’t have mentioned the latter, but she really is so pretty.
“No one holds a candle to you, kitten.”
I snort, and Bridger freezes, the fork in his hand pausing in the middle of helping Birdie to make crisscross figures in the dough, and only his eyes lift to mine.
“Are you telling me that I haven’t made it perfectly clear how gorgeous you are?”