Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 27319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 109(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
If she’ll just stay.
Giving myself a moment to harness my need for Chloe , I push away from the window and cross the room to where she strokes Curtis’s hair, his head nestled in her lap. I’m caught off guard by the potency of the scene and before I can stop myself, I’m envisioning her holding our own child in her arms, murmuring to them about cows jumping over the moon. My heart shoots up into my throat and stays there, making my voice unnatural when I say, “Would you like me to carry him to bed for you?”
“Yes, please,” she whispers, hazel eyes shining up at me. “He’s had the most wonderful day, but it knocked him right out.”
I nod stiffly, trying not to show how happy that makes me. Perhaps I’m not so hopeless after all. “I’m glad to hear it.” Reaching down, I pick up the child and cradle his sleeping form against my chest, an odd pang catching me in the sternum when he curls closer, trustingly. “I’ll just…be back in a moment.”
It’s very odd carrying a child, but I’m not a moron, so I manage to make it to the room beneath the stairs without incident, shouldering open the door and stepping inside.
“I’m very sorry to inform you, Curtis, your sister isn’t going to be sleeping in here with you tonight,” I say, knowing he can’t hear me in his unconscious state. “If you need her for anything, she’ll be upstairs in the master suite.”
“Where is that?” he asks, an eyelid cracking open.
I blink down at him. “Were you fake sleeping?”
He shrugs. “Chloe was tired.”
A smile stretches my mouth before I can stop it. “So you pretended to be asleep so she wouldn’t have to read anymore? That’s pretty considerate of you, Curtis.”
“Is considerate good?”
“Yes.”
His grin is white in the dark room.
Realizing I’ve stopped in the middle of the floor with the child still in my arms, I take two strides and lay him in the center of the bed. “Well, then. You’ll just…drift off now?”
“Yup.” He nestles into the bedding, looping a sheet around his hand and pressing the bundle to his face, like some kind of odd ritual. “’Night, Sebastian.”
The kid butchers my name. It sounds more like Sebashun. We’ll have to work on that. “Good night.” I turn to leave, but he calls my name, bringing me up short. “Yes?”
“Did you kill the bad guys today?”
My skin tightens in anger at the memory of how they spoke to my Chloe. How close she’s come in the past to being hurt by one of those miscreants. “No. I just made it so they wouldn’t bother your sister again.”
His shoulders slump with seeming relief. A second later, however, he perks up. “Can you teach me to kill bad guys?”
“Curtis, I didn’t kill—” I break off, sighing. “Sure.”
He swings his little fists like a miniature boxer. “They won’t bother Chloe. I’ll be bigger soon.”
Before, I might have just dismissed his ramblings, but it’s almost like my heart has opened…and now I can see and hear new things. I can hear the slight wobble in Curtis’s voice when he makes the childish vow to protect his sister and I know there’s a lot more happening under the surface. “Curtis, you’ve done a very good job of protecting your sister for me. Until I could find her. She might not have been so cautious if it wasn’t for you. I figure that means…I owe you. For a job well done.”
When he beams at me like I’m some kind of hero—which I certainly am not—there is a very suspicious tightening in my throat.
“Well, then.” I rub at the spot. “Good night.”
Without answering, he drops back into the sheets, his soft snores reaching me a few seconds later. And for some reason, I smile on my way back across the downstairs floor to the study. I might be mistaken, but I think I might have put that child’s mind at ease. Me. Is that possible? If so, who knew such a thing would be so…fulfilling?
Chloe is on her belly staring into the fire with a drowsy smile on her face. She turns it on me when I walk into the study and my tongue grows heavy in my mouth. Christ, she is too beautiful for words, especially with her hair down and loose, the dove gray dress molded to her pert derriere, the fire making her skin glow. I can do nothing but stare. Marvel over my fortune. Count my blessings that she came to my doorstep and not someone else’s. I want to tell her about what happened with Curtis, but I’m barely getting used to the idea that I could actually be good for these two amazing people. Will it sound ridiculous out loud?
“I was thinking we could go for a walk,” I say, instead. “On the cliffs.”