Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
“I will do right by her,” Pike said, swallowing hard. “She’s not going to die. I’m going to get to be her dad. It’s not too late.”
Mia reached out, taking his hand and holding tight. “Of course it’s not. She’s going to pull through. She’s so special, Pike. So smart and funny and…” Mia’s voice broke and when she spoke again her words were barely audible, “I just love her so much.”
“I love her mama,” Pike whispered.
“Oh shit, I do, too,” Mia said, rubbing his back. “I do, I just don’t know what to do with all this. About Clem and you two keeping all of it hidden. I had no fucking clue you were ever together.”
“It started when I was drafted into the minors. But I was in love with her before, I was just too stupid…” He trailed off as the tears pushing at the back of his eyes spilled down his cheeks “I still love her, but I don’t know how to get past this. I can’t stop thinking that if Clem dies, she will have spent her entire life thinking her daddy didn’t want her.”
Mia wrapped her arms around his shoulders, holding him as he covered his face with his hands and fought to pull his shit together. He hadn’t cried in years, not since Tulsi called things off the first time. That night, he’d ended up sobbing into his whiskey until two in the morning and puking through his morning run the next day.
Why hadn’t she told him? Maybe not at first, when she was so young and they were both hurt and full of resentment, but why not after Clem was born? Or at some point in all the years after? Had she really hated him that much?
The way you hated her until you laid eyes on her again?
Pike flinched against the thought. He had hated her. He’d held a grudge against that woman like it was his job because…that was the only way he could get by without her. Because sometimes hating someone is the only way to survive not being allowed to love them anymore.
He’d told Tulsi the truth the other day—he really had been falling in love with her his entire life. It wasn’t just that perfect spring that haunted him. It was every summer camping trip, every time he’d plopped down on the couch between her and Mia and given them shit for the romantic comedies they watched when they were teens. It was every time he’d warned one of his friends not to look at his surrogate little sister like she was a piece of meat and every time he’d ridden a trail with Tulsi and admired her quiet assurance with horses and the gentle way she smiled. It was just Tulsi, the sweet, beautiful, seemingly fragile woman who had the biggest heart he’d ever known and a fierce, secret strength when it came to protecting the people she loved.
The thought brought back a memory, one of those few crystal clear memories from childhood that had never left him.
He’d been ten years old and had run off down the river bank to find a stick to use for a sword fight with his friends. The entire church had turned out for the annual float trip, but all the grown-ups were busy fixing lunch when the accident happened. Pike had been the only one to see six-year-old Tulsi tumble off the fallen log, as she was crossing the river, and get swept downstream in the swift current. There hadn’t been time to get a grown-up, but even if there had, Pike wouldn’t have hesitated to run down the rocky bank and dive into the water. Tulsi was his little sister’s age, but she was this tiny thing who only came up to Mia’s shoulder. The second Pike heard her cry out for help and saw her little blond head disappear beneath the water, his heart had stopped and protective instincts, he hadn’t realized he possessed at ten, had surged to the surface.
Later, after he’d pulled Tulsi from the water, all the grown-ups had called him a hero, but it was Tulsi’s arms locked tight around his neck that had made him feel like one.
Even now, nearly twenty years later, he could still recall the wonder that had filled him as he realized he’d saved the life of the little girl in his arms. And thank God he had, because she would grow up to save his, with her love and her touch and her eyes that looked past his defenses and saw every hidden piece of his heart. No one had ever known him the way Tulsi did and he would never love anyone the way he loved her. It didn’t matter what she’d done, it didn’t matter how much it hurt.