Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 100226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry,” she says again, and when I open my eyes, I see that she’s watching me with wonder. “I really just wanted to get you coffee.”
“Next time,” I kiss her lips softly, “leave a note, little rose. Please.”
She grins and then laughs. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Where are we going?”
“This is the fourth time you’ve asked me that since we left the house.” I open my mouth when she offers me a bite of a muffin and take the lemony goodness from her. “We haven’t even made it through town yet. Impatient much?”
She smirks and takes a bite of her own sweet treat. She managed to warm up our coffees after we got dressed. How, I have no idea, but she’s the coffee expert, so I don’t really have to know.
“I don’t love surprises. They’re not usually good ones, honestly.”
I glance over and notice that she’s twisting the paper koozie on her cup, fidgeting.
“Hey, it’s nothing bad. I’d warn you if it wasn’t a good surprise. I don’t like those either.”
“Promise?”
I take one of her hands and lift it to my mouth, kissing that delicate spot on her wrist, just below her thumb. “Promise. I will tell you that we’re going out of town.”
“Like, to the ranch out of town, or to Sweden out of town?”
“I don’t have my passport on me.” I grin over at her. “You want to go to Sweden, baby girl?”
“Not really. It just popped into my head. If you could go anywhere, where would you go?”
“Maybe somewhere tropical in the winter.” I lift a shoulder. “It always sounds like a good idea to go somewhere warm in January.”
“That would be nice,” she agrees. “Get some vitamin D, sit by the pool, eat my weight in fresh seafood, seduce the cabana boy.”
Now I bite her wrist, making her laugh.
“Don’t worry, I was picturing you as said cabana boy.”
“Mm-hmm.” I kiss her wrist once more as I pull onto the freeway.
“Are you really not going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Guess.”
She scoffs and shoves more muffin into her mouth, and when I glance over, her eyes are narrowed. “We’re headed west, so…Missoula?”
I choke on my coffee. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t, I just guessed. What are we going to do there? Are we staying overnight? I didn’t pack a bag.”
“Not overnight.” I eye her and then turn my gaze back to the windshield. “Since you’re a mind reader now, you tell me what we’re doing.”
“I don’t know.” She deflates against the door with a dramatic sigh, making me grin. “Maybe it should be a surprise.”
Once my heart settled down this morning, and I made her sit with her ankle up on ice for at least thirty minutes, I told Millie to get ready to leave the house for the day.
She smiled like she’d won the fucking lottery.
I know she’s been getting cabin fever. She’s not used to being stuck at home for days on end. If she’d left a note or taken her phone so she could reply to me this morning, I wouldn’t have been angry in the least that she went to get coffee. But waking up to a still, empty house, and not being able to find my wife, was a moment I don’t want to relive any time soon.
“I think this morning is the first time I’ve seen you really pissed off,” she says. There’s no meekness there, no hesitation.
“I suspect that’s the maddest I’ve ever been at you.” I switch lanes, passing a truck. “It’s probably as angry as I get.”
“I was going to say, you’re usually pretty even-tempered. Not much riles you up. Now I know what does.”
I sigh, and Millie reaches over to lay her hand on my thigh, and I cover it with my own hand. “I have always been careful to keep my temper under wraps. My dad…well, there aren’t words for what a piece of shit he was, but his temper was legendary, and I don’t ever want to lose it the way he would.”
“You are not that man.” Her voice is hard. “Look at me.”
I glance her way and see her jaw set and her eyes narrow. “I see you, wife.”
“Listen, I probably would have been pissed, too, if the roles were reversed. Especially after what happened a few days ago. I still won’t apologize for going out, because that wasn’t wrong, but I am sorry that it scared you, and I promise that from now on, I’ll make sure to leave a note and remember my phone.”
“Thank you.” I squeeze her fingers. “That’s all I ask.”
“However, I can’t guarantee that I won’t try to rile you up again, because you’re intense when you’re mad at me, and in a sexy way, so…take that as you will, husband.”
My heart kicks up a notch, and I raise her hand to my mouth. “Are you just begging for me to find a back road out here in the middle of nowhere so I can make you come, Rosie?”