Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
But this isn’t something I want to rush.
This night…
The possibilities arising between us…
I don’t want to do anything to scare her away or dim the warmth in her eyes.
So, once we’re finished eating, I draw her onto the dance floor and into my arms, swaying with her to a Celtic ballad sung by the band’s witchy-looking singer. I can’t understand the words—they’re in Gaelic—but I understand the longing behind them all too well.
The song swells and dips and aches, the way I ache for this woman.
She curls her fingers around mine and rests her head on my chest, sending a twist of longing through me that’s painful. And for the first time in my forty years of life, I understand why so many songs talk about how much love hurts. Even if there wasn’t a single obstacle standing in our way, it hurts to want someone this much, to realize too late that you might not be okay without them.
I’m a survivor, I always have been, but I don’t like the idea of surviving Sully.
I don’t want to lose her. Hell, I don’t want to spend another day without her. I want her in my bed when I go to sleep and when I get up in the morning. I want to make her dreams come true and to celebrate her successes and to watch her grow into an even more powerful, impressive woman than she is already.
There isn’t anyone else like her, not even close. And though we come from different worlds in so many ways, being with someone has never felt this right, this…necessary.
I bend my head, pressing a kiss to her forehead, the ache in my chest growing almost unbearable when she sighs and clings tighter to my neck. I’m about to do it, to tell her that I don’t want to dance with anyone else tonight—or ever again—when the sound of a horn blaring cuts through the air.
Sully jerks away, apologizing to the couples swaying around us as she quickly fetches her cell from her purse and silences the sound.
“Sorry,” she says again, this time to me as she glances down at the screen with a worried expression. She’s already moving toward the front of the ballroom as she says, “It’s Aunt Cathy. She only calls if there’s a family emergency. I have to take this.”
“Of course,” I assure her. “I’ll get your coat from the check, in case we need to leave.”
Relief in her eyes, she mouths, “thank you,” before accepting the call. She turns, pressing her cell to her ear as she hurries through the cornfield toward the exit. I only hear her say, “Cathy? Hey, what’s up?” before her voice fades away.
I step into the line for the coat check, where latecomers are just dropping off their things and only the over sixty set are looking to pick up. Watching the slightly stooped older couple in front of me shouting loudly into each other’s hearing aids, I think about the age gap between Sully and myself in a different context than I have before…
For now, it doesn’t matter. I’m a man in my prime. I have no trouble keeping up with or besting younger men in the gym or at the office and keeping up with Sully isn’t an issue, either.
But there will come a day when my body will begin to deteriorate, no matter how hard I fight it. When this thing with Sully had no future, I wasn’t concerned about that.
But now…
Will the beautiful woman striding toward me with a relieved expression still look at me like she can’t get my clothes off fast enough when she’s a woman in her prime, and I qualify for the senior discount and can’t stay up past ten o’clock?
She lifts her cell in the air, rocking it back and forth as she comes to stand beside me. “False alarm.” She sighs, rolling her eyes. “Well, not a false alarm to the crazy people in my family, but nothing we need to worry about. My cousin Jennifer is in labor. It looks like the baby is coming in the next hour or two, but her grandmother, my great aunt, is the crazy kind of Catholic, so…”
I arch a brow, trying to push the vision of myself stooped over and asking a still strong, gorgeous Sully to shout into my hearing aid from my head. “And that means…?”
She laughs. “Sorry. I forgot your family isn’t very churchy. It’s Halloween. Great Aunt Sue thinks Halloween is the devil’s day. So, if the baby is born tonight it might end up being the Antichrist, or something. And she’s worked way too hard to keep the Sullivan clan on God’s good side for that.”
She shoots me a wry smile as we shift forward in line. “She’s in the hospital chapel, praying for the baby to hold out until after midnight, so it can be born on All Saints’ Day instead. Aunt Cathy’s worried she’s going to give herself a heart attack, but I told her it would be okay. Aunt Sue is in incredible shape. She was the only eighty-year-old to finish the town 5K last year. She’ll still be here, stressing out about our immortal souls and making her horrible onion dip for the church picnic when the rest of us are six feet under.”