Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 72122 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72122 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Imogen leaned across the table, her ass waving in the air, and snatched my hand to hers.
“You’re married?” Imogen shrieked.
***
Truth
I was having a serious conversation with Aaron about emergency protocols, my hand on Tank’s head, petting him softly, when the woman's shrieks rent the air.
“You’re married?” Imogen shrieked.
The men that were surrounding me looked in my direction, wondering if I would deny it, but I could do nothing but shrug.
“Vegas, baby.”
The men had, apparently, neglected to tell their wives that we were married.
Big Papa snorted.
“Got my first wife that way, too.”
We’d all heard about Big Papa’s first wife.
She was a Vegas show dancer and had seen him at a show. She thought he was some big man made of money with him dressed up so fancy as he was. Really he’d just been attending a police officer’s convention and had worn a suit instead of his uniform. Tracy, Big Papa’s first wife, thought he was hot shit in that suit, and one thing led to another, causing them to be married by the end of the night.
Sean came along nine months later, and two months after that, she was gone again, never to be seen again.
Big Papa had filed for divorce, and had then filed for abandonment when nothing ever came of the divorce papers he’d sent to her.
Six months later, Big Papa was officially a single father, and he’d pretty much been that way ever since.
Though he’d been married one other time, but that hadn’t taken either.
That one had just been a fast and loose wedding as well. The marriage had been even shorter.
Two days after Lizzibeth married Big Papa, she filed for an annulment.
But that was about all I knew about that one.
Lizzibeth had nearly broken Big Papa.
It didn’t seem like too big a deal at the time, but now that I had a woman of my own, I could see the lines on his face. I could also read the loneliness in his eyes, though he’d never admit to it.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Aaron said, popping me solidly on the back with one scarred hand. “The real question is, what are you going to do about it.”
I sighed.
“I’m not doing anything about it,” I admitted. “I’m going to keep living my life.”
“And what about her?”
That was from Ghost.
“What’s it to you if I do anything or not?” I shot back.
“What’s it to me?” he asked, leaning forward out of the shadows. “You have a woman that cares for you, and you’re just going to throw her away?”
I’d never said that. Not even once.
“Nope,” I denied. “She’s already moved into my house. Now I just have to make sure that pecker head doesn’t try to kill her.”
“That won’t happen,” Big Papa promised, ready to turn the topic at hand. “Now, about that security.”
I listened, and even retained some of the information, but it was hard to keep my hands off my woman…my wife.
She was talking animatedly to Imogen and Tally about something, and the way her eyes swung from one woman to the other, paired with the smile on her face, was making me lose concentration.
“Earth to Lover Boy,” Sean drawled.
I sighed and returned my attention back to the conversation at hand.
And immediately wished I hadn’t.
“We’re going to make a run this weekend to the Benton Chapter House,” Big Papa was saying. “You are not cordially invited. You’re going, along with the rest of us.”
“Can the women go?” I asked.
Aaron groaned.
Tommy grinned.
“We already went over that, for about fifteen minutes,” Sean said. “This is a penis only trip, and vaginas aren’t invited.”
“But what about Beckett?” I asked. “I can’t leave her here by herself with that jerkwad loose in this town.”
Big Papa continued to stare.
“We went over that, too.” Sean confirmed.
I crossed my arms over my chest.
“And what was decided?”
“That we send the women for a girls’ weekend up north,” Tommy said. “My parents are living in Colorado for the winter. They want to partake in unlimited snowboarding and have a place big enough to house not only the ladies, but us as well if we want to drive there after we’re done here.”
I thought about it.
“I do have a break coming between sessions,” I admitted. “I have to finish a sword, and the next one up after that is Verity’s project for her dad. If I ask her to go to Colorado, and tell her I’ll join her there in a few days, she won’t have a problem with that.”
Big Papa slapped me on the back.
“It’s settled then.” He stood up. “Who wants to take a shot with me?”
Nobody raised their hand, and Big Papa laughed.
“Never thought I’d see the day where all of my boys are pussy whipped.”
With that parting comment, he left, leaving Sean, me, Tommy, and Aaron sitting around an unlit fire pit, staring at each other.