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)
“Nothing smells better than you,” she murmurs, and it makes my heart stutter again, and my cock twitch. “Hold on.”
She hurries inside and returns ten seconds later with the T-shirt, and passes it to me. Then, she looks around to see if anyone’s watching, turns her back to the street, and quickly strips out of my hoodie, shoves it at me, and replaces it with the zip-up I just gave her, pulling the zipper all the way to her neck.
She buries her face in the red material and sighs happily.
“That’s so much better.”
“You just stripped on your porch, kitten.”
“I wanted to trade you.” She shrugs while still sniffing my sweatshirt. “No one saw.”
“You’d better hope they didn’t, because if anyone sees what’s mine, I’ll fucking tear their eyes out of their head. Don’t do that again.”
She blinks and then walks right into my arms, holding me tightly around the middle, her head pressed to my chest. “Okay.”
I kiss the top of her head and brush my fingers through her soft, dark hair. “Come out to the ranch with Birdie and me tomorrow. We’re going to spend the day riding some horses and hanging with the family. Come with us.”
“Oh.” She shakes her head and frowns up at me. “You should spend some time with Birdie, Bridge. I know that if I didn’t see much of you this week, neither did she, and—”
“Whoa.” I kiss her nose and cup her jaw, my fingers in her hair. “I want you with us. I want Birdie to spend time with you outside of school, when it’s the three of us together. I want you out at my family’s ranch, and you’ll stay for dinner, too. Sundays are usually a big deal out there, and I think even Blake is off from the hospital, so he’ll be around, too. Bee’s gonna come for dinner after the bookstore closes. Brooks closes down the garage on Sundays. Come be with my family, sweetheart.”
I tip her chin up and brush my lips over hers, and her hands fist in my shirt.
“Okay,” she whispers against my lips. “What time should I be ready?”
“Come over for breakfast at nine. Hell, come over whenever you want and come cuddle with me in bed.”
I waggle my eyebrows at her, and she chuckles.
“Don’t look now, but you’re sounding a little needy.”
“A little? I need to up my game. Because when it comes to you, I’m a lot needy.”
“Aww, that’s cute. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“For cuddles or for breakfast?”
“Probably both, who am I kidding?”
She came for both, arriving right around eight. I wanted to pull her into my bedroom so we could snuggle in my bed, but I didn’t want Birdie to walk in on that and have questions.
I need to talk to Birdie about Dani being around more often.
Instead, we cuddled up on the couch, me lying on my back and Dani curled up on top of me, with a blanket over the both of us.
I could have stayed there all day, but eventually, I heard Birdie stir, so we got up to make breakfast before we got ready to head out to the ranch.
We’ve been here all day, and it’s now mid-afternoon. Time for the three of us to take a ride. Nothing too crazy because Birdie’s still learning, but I’d like some time alone with them.
“Daddy, I want my own horse today.”
“I think that’s okay,” I reply, eyeing my daughter. “We won’t go far.”
She just doesn’t have the stamina in her tiny body for a long ride yet. But I love that she enjoys the horses. She has no fear where they’re concerned.
Dani and I get the horses saddled and ready to go, and before long, the three of us are wandering down the same path I took Dani on last weekend.
“The trees have already started to change so much in just one week,” Dani says with a smile. “It’s fun to watch. Pretty soon, it’ll be time for pumpkins and apple picking and all kinds of fun things.”
“I like to carve punkins,” Birdie says. “And I want to be a princess for Halloween.”
“Of course, you do,” Dani replies. “Because you are a princess. Which one do you want to be?”
“Guess!”
I grin, enjoying the two of them. They’re so natural with each other. It makes me want things that I never dared want before because I knew that I was never going to make a family with Angela. She wasn’t ever going to fit in with us like this.
But Dani? Dani fits in just perfectly.
“Hmm.” The woman I’m falling in love with taps her chin, as if in thought. “Snow White?”
“No.” Birdie shakes her head, grinning. “Try again.”
“Jasmine?”
“Nope.”
“Okay, tell me. I’m dying to know.”
“Tiana,” Birdie says with a little wiggle. “I like green, and her dress is so pretty.”