Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 104288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
I want to snuggle into him. Curl up in his heat. But I don’t want to break the spell. I also don’t want either of us to get too turned on. Tonight—I get the feeling it’s for talking. The naked stuff we can do later.
I really hope we get to do more naked stuff.
“I owe you an explanation,” Tuck begins. “I don’t talk about Katie’s mom much because it . . . I think it confuses Katie. She and my ex, Becca, don’t really have a relationship. Becca moved out when Katie was six weeks old. Hasn’t been back since.”
I suck in a breath. “That’s rough.”
“It was awful.” Tuck runs a hand down his face. “Her leaving—our relationship ending—it fucked me up. Bad. I was crazy about her. When she left, I wanted to fall apart. I was falling apart. But I had a new baby to take care of, so I couldn’t.”
“Oh, Tuck. You never really got the chance to mourn. Or process.” The pieces are starting to come together now. I’ve suspected for a while that his broodiness, his coldness, comes from some sort of wound. He’s such a good man and father. He has so many good friends who clearly love him. There’s no way Tuck is mean or rude or cowardly at his core.
Something happened to him. It’s a big deal that he’s finally telling me what that something is.
He lifts his mug to his lips. “I just kind of shut down, you know? The pain was . . . yeah, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. And I got a third degree burn on my second tour in Afghanistan.” He pulls up his shorts to reveal the patch of rumpled skin there. “Had to get a skin graft and everything. That hurt like a motherfucker. But Becca asking for a divorce? That hurt way, way worse.”
I put a hand on his leg, right where the graft is. “I was wondering what this was from. What happened?”
“It’s a long story, but I was trapped inside a burning vehicle.”
My heart squeezes. Jesus Christ, this man has been through it. I feel like I know him, but at the same time, I don’t know him at all. He’s lived so many lives, while I feel like I’ve only had my very ordinary, very sheltered one.
Guess that’s the rub when there’s a ten-plus-year age difference between you.
“Tuck,” I say, my voice thick. “I am so, so sorry. About everything.”
Looking at me, he tucks my hair behind my ear. “Ain’t your fault. And you bein’ around, it makes everything better, Tiny. We needed your sunshine more than I knew.”
His accent is more pronounced, same as it was when we were in bed together. Makes me think it only happens when he’s in his feelings.
Considering he doesn’t ever allow that to happen in our daily lives, I take it as a compliment.
A compliment that makes my heart feel two sizes too big.
I am falling hard for this man.
“Can I ask what happened?” I swallow. “With Becca?”
He nods. “Becca was the first girl I ever fell in love with. We were eighteen. Met a little while before I went to boot camp. I was so young and just, like, wild about her in the way you are when you’re that age. We stayed together through both my deployments. My buddies back home would tell me they saw her out with other guys, but when I confronted her, she always had a good excuse. If I’m being honest, I was so infatuated with her I probably would’ve stuck around even if she didn’t. She was the one. Or so I thought. I would’ve married her before I was deployed the first time, but she thought we were too young. She finally said yes when I was discharged.”
“Oh, boy.”
Tuck smiles tightly. “You see where this is going. I didn’t, unfortunately. Or maybe I did and I just ignored the red flags. Whatever the case, we got married. I wanted to have kids and she always said she did too. But when I told her I was ready, she kind of balked. She asked me to give her a year, so I gave her a year. She asked for another year and I gave her that too. By this point we were almost thirty. She knew I was dyin’ to be a daddy, so she agreed to try. I knew she was reluctant. I knew she wasn’t one hundred percent ready. But I thought that once she got pregnant and we had a baby, she’d be glad we did it. She’d come around, you know? Settle down.”
I have no words, so I just squeeze his leg.
He covers my hand with the enormous paw of his own. His touch is warm, dry, and it sends a shiver through me.