Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
I needed Wilder to get here. I needed to see his face and know everything was okay. He was what mattered to me.
Twenty-Two
Wilder
By the time the credits rolled, Sarah was sleeping soundly, her head in Oakley’s lap. Belladonna was at her feet, snoring. Two empty bowls of popcorn, a half-eaten pecan pie, a plate of crumbs from the cookies that had once been there all littered the coffee table. Oakley glanced over at me and smiled. I tried real damn hard not to let it get to me. Platonic was what I was going for with her.
“You want to wake her or carry her up?” she whispered.
Belladonna sprang to her feet, as if she were going to be left behind.
“I’ll carry her. It’s been a long day,” I told her.
Bending down, I picked Sarah up and cradled her in my arms. It had been a while since I’d held her like this. When I looked down at her, it made me miss the days when she had been little and ache for all the time I hadn’t been there. Only getting her every other weekend hadn’t been nearly enough.
The reminder that I could have had her more and one of the reasons I hadn’t gotten that chance sat there on my sofa in front of me. The bitterness that had slowly been fading away came back in a rush. Oakley had the power to make a man forget his fucking name. I wasn’t going to let her make me forget that she was one of the people who had robbed me of the time I should have had with my daughter. Time I could never get back.
She had blinded me once, but never again. I had let her in today. My mom had said things that made me think I could trust her. Allow her back into my life as well as Sarah’s. But there was the past, and Mom didn’t know all those details. It was something I didn’t discuss because the outcome had been Sarah. Blaming Oakley for crushing me and sending me on a drunken binge that had had me waking up with Sylvia in my bed felt like I was, in return, holding the birth of my daughter against her. I could never regret Sarah. Even if there was a time when I’d thought I’d never be happy again. That Oakley had taken any chance of that from me.
There had to be a line, and I couldn’t cross it. Oakley having movie night with us had made Sarah happy and made me feel like less of a dick for what I’d said about her. But even if she had grown up and changed, it had only been six years since she had told the judge I wasn’t fit to have custody of Sarah.
“Okay. I’ll get this cleaned up before Belladonna sneaks in here and does it herself. You don’t want her sick. It can get messy,” Oakley said, standing up.
“I can get it,” I told her. “You need to get on the road. It’s late, and you have a five-hour drive.”
When I had asked her to stay and watch a movie with us, I had fully intended for her to stay the night. That moment had passed. I could forgive her for the part she had played in the past with Sarah’s custody. My mom was right; Oakley had a good heart. She was a good person. The past was done, but just because time had changed her didn’t mean I could let my guard down with her.
“Oh, yeah, right,” she replied, turning from me and picking up two bowls. “I’ll just move these so she doesn’t help herself while you tuck Sarah in, and then I’ll get going.”
I stood there and watched her as she hurried from the room, not once looking at me. I felt like a fucking asshole, but this was the right thing to do. For Sarah and for me. I had to protect what was mine, and Oakley had once been a threat. That didn’t mean she couldn’t be again. At least where I was concerned.
Shifting Sarah in my arms and pulling her closer to my body, I focused on her face. How big she was getting. How important she was to me and why Oakley needed to be kept at arm’s length. Allowing myself to remember how she had charmed my entire fucking family today—helped my mother, even gone out of her way to make Scott’s date feel like a part of the family—was just going to cause issues.
Oakley was good with people. She had the beauty and charisma to command a room and mold everyone in it like putty in her hands. But she hadn’t betrayed them. She hadn’t turned on them out of spite and taken something from them that they could never get back.