Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
“I’m not sure your version will make it into a romance novel,” she critiqued.
“Don’t give a shit, since I’m living it, and damned if I’m not trying to find two motherfuckers who killed a sweet, loving woman, and still, I’m happier than I’ve been in maybe two decades.”
Her face scrunched like she was going to cry again, so she hid it back in his throat.
She got it together without crying that time, but said into his skin, “She’d come over just because. Because she loved Maddy, and she loved me. She’d grab my grocery list and take Madden to town. She’d get my dry cleaning. She’d bring me an Aromacobana in my office just because she swung by there on the way to work. She and Keyleigh would have Madden over for slumber parties, especially around the time Jaeger and I were ending things, and he was getting ready to move. Also, when Gram died. We were functional and we were loving, and we loved her, and she never had that, but it wasn’t the only reason she came around. It was because that was Brittanie. Madden was closer to her than me, but she was nearly a daily part of our lives, and I miss her.”
“I got that, baby,” he murmured, stroking her back.
“I worry sometimes I keep such a tight rein on everything because I have so much responsibility, I’m teaching Madden the wrong things. I don’t know, maybe it’s not good to control your emotions the way I do.”
“Sweetheart, you have no choice, life is going to kick you in the teeth. You’ll never see it coming. Jenn for some reason wants me to make Sabrina a little girl until…I don’t know when. But there’s danger out there in the dark. Men are going to break her heart. Bosses are gonna suck. I don’t want a daughter who’ll fall apart at a slight breeze when the hurricane gales are what’s coming next. She’s gonna be her, girlie and womanly and feminine and soft, all her life. That’s who she is. But I don’t want that softness to be weakness. I just want it to be soft.”
Again angling her head back to look at him, she waited.
He gave it to her.
“I think Jenn is weak. I think she expected the world to be as she wanted it, and when it wasn’t, and she couldn’t deal, that soft became hard.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
He shook his head and pulled them up to sitting. “Enough about me. I don’t own a mountain.”
She chuckled quietly.
“I’ll get you wine, you get comfortable,” he offered.
“Can I use your bathroom?”
He nodded.
She took off.
He rinsed her from his fingers in the sink at the bar and poured her wine.
When she returned, she had the knot out of her hair so it had tumbled down in waves around her face and shoulders, and the mascara smears were gone.
They met at the couch.
“It’s not that exciting,” she said to start.
“I don’t have a mountain named after my family. Let me be the judge of that.”
Her eyes glittered and she cozied into him in front of the fire, head on his shoulder, wineglass in hand.
“Well, you know my family has been here for a while. And many-greats Granny didn’t put up with a lot of shit.”
“Yes, I know that.”
“She was also a savvy businesswoman. As money came in, she decided to differentiate herself from the other saloons and whorehouses in town, built the Bonner bordello where the club is now. We’ve rebuilt it since, but back then, it was clean. You could get a delicious meal there. The beds were soft. The girls were dressed nice, and they were pretty.”
“Sounds familiar,” he quipped.
She gave him an elbow, took a sip of wine and went on.
“Because the bordello was there, and then the house was built there, it became known locally as Bonner Mountain.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
“It’s also why whoever takes over the club goes by the name of Bonner. That’s just a tradition, not an edict. Legally, I’m Lucinda Margaret Bonner Sexton. But I drop Sexton for pretty much everything but my taxes, bills and driver’s license.”
“And why Madden is Madden Emery Bonner Rhett.”
Her head moved on his shoulder with her nod. “Though I have a cousin. She’s younger than me. You may have met her. Esmae. She manages the downstairs club.”
“Yeah, I think I talked to her.”
“She’ll probably take over from me. As much as Madden wants to be something new every other week when she grows up, fashion designer and CEO are not where she lands for the most part. She’s good at languages, but she’s a STEM kid. She wants to go to a big geek camp next summer. I honestly think she’ll be a doctor, but she’s good at tech, so she could be an engineer.”
“Right. So…CEO?”
He asked because he was surprised at her title.