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)
“I thought that was him,” Bowe muttered. “Why do you think a grown ass woman needs picked up from her college classes?”
“Because she’s a bitch and likes to rub it in my face,” I told him. “She’s fucking petty.”
I could tell that he was convinced of that as well.
“I had a talk with Alan today,” Bowe started.
I looked up from putting peas into my daughter’s mouth and looked at him intently.
“And?” I asked shortly.
He tossed me a grin over his shoulder.
He was wearing a loose-fitting pair of knit shorts that came to just below his knees, an old beat up shirt, and nothing else.
His feet were bare and digging into the new rug—memory foam because Bowe had insisted that he needed it—as he stirred the food.
His eyes, though, were on me as he stirred.
“He and I both decided that, if all goes well with my fitness test that I’m taking tomorrow, I’ll start back to work on Monday.” He stopped stirring and turned so his back was resting against the counter, his eyes intent on me.
“That…sucks,” I said. “You were the only thing keeping me sane throughout my classes.”
Bowe grinned.
“That’s another thing,” he paused. “He’s offered me the teaching position if I want it. He says that with the test scores of all of the students, it’s obvious I’m teaching what needs to be taught, and that if I want it, I can have the position. It’d still be only one day—but that’s okay. Right?”
A smile broke out over my face, and I started to reply when Elise slammed her hand against the spoon that was still suspended in the air in front of her mouth—obviously ticked that I wouldn’t give it to her—and sprayed green mushy peas all over the place.
Splatters went everywhere. On the floor, on my white shirt, on the table. Even in my hair.
“Thank you,” I said, turning to her.
Bowe was laughing softly as he watched the interaction.
Elise gave him a toothy smile.
“You should’ve known not to deprive her of her food,” Bowe reprimanded softly. “The girl’s wastin’ away. Can’t you tell?”
I gave him a look that clearly relayed what I thought of his ‘wastin’ away’ comment. Obviously, the girl had plenty if her clothes, three sizes up from what most children her age were wearing, was any indication.
“She’s like the Michelin Man in baby form,” I told him.
He nodded his head in agreement.
“Oh, I’m well aware of the state of all her rolls since I was the one to put her in the outfit she’s wearing,” he replied.
I looked at the tiny onesie that declared her as a future member of KFD.
“It’s cute,” I said. “Where did you get it from?”
He turned back to the stove and shut the burners off.
“A couple of the guys had them made and I asked for a couple. I’m just glad it fits,” he admitted. “I had no earthly idea what size to get her.”
I smiled as I scooped the last spoonful of peas onto the spoon and fed it to a still starving Elise.
“Will you grab me a jar of fruits?” I asked him when he shuffled in the direction of the cabinet where I kept the baby food.
“Yeah,” he rumbled. “But let me feed her while you get yourself dinner.”
“You eat first,” I told him.
He gave me a look that conveyed what he thought of that, and I rolled my eyes.
“You eat so slow that it won’t matter if I feed Elise first. I’ll still finish before you,” he challenged me.
I huffed a laugh as I offered him the spoon.
“We’ll just see about that.”
The thing was, when it came to Bowe’s dinners, I liked to savor them.
They were freakin’ works of art and they didn’t deserve to just be shoveled down.
They deserved to be eaten slowly, each flavor relished and enjoyed.
Like sex.
As I scooped up some of the sauce and ran it over my noodles, I looked at Bowe out of the corner of my eye.
Even in an old pair of shorts and an even older shirt, he was still sexy as sin.
He was sitting on a dining room chair with Elise’s high chair directly in front of him.
His beard, which had grown quite exceptionally over the time he had been off from the fire department, was front and center in my thoughts.
I’d never been one for a man with a beard, and I knew that at some point he would be shaving it off for work, but right now, I was enjoying the hell out of it.
And so were the ladies at my school.
I’d never given much thought to the hype with beards lately.
Sure, some of them were cool.
But most of them were a little too long for my tastes.
Bowe’s beard, however, was just about perfect. Long, but not too long, it had a reddish tint to it that got brighter or darker depending on the lighting he was in.