Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
The little girl came straight for me.
“Mr. Kane, save me!” she shouted.
Her angel face was filled with joy.
No trace of fear.
I swept her into my arms.
That was the way I was going to keep it.
This child safe and secure.
In my arms and without fear.
Without the fear I’d faced as a kid, the way so many of us had.
And I was going to do it surrounded by a shit ton of people who would do absolutely anything for her, the same way as we would do for the little boy who was suddenly attached to me, both his arms and his legs wrapped around my leg.
“You were right, Uncle Kane. Maci is really awesome, and she jumped right into my number one spot, lickity split.”
He tried to snap his fingers while holding on with one arm.
Maci squeezed my neck like mad, her chubby cheek pressed to mine. “I got a whole lotta number ones because I really love my auntie and my mommy and my grammy, and now my Nolan and my Mr. Kane, too.”
That love she was speaking of? It battered me. Full battle blows that railed from every side.
Nolan seemed to agree because he swayed back and forth where he was attached to my leg, grinning wide. “Well, I love you a whole lot, and you gotta stay with us here forever because family is who we love most.”
Maci giggled while my spirit thrashed.
Family.
Never thought I would get to have one.
Not like this.
And my foolish eyes were landing on Emery, drawn in a beat.
I was thinking the same way as hers were drawn to me.
She stared at me with that warm, toffee gaze that sparked beneath the twilight.
The first woman I’d ever met who might have the power to do me in.
THIRTY-THREE
EMERY
“Look at them together. Are they not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?” Reverence filled Raven’s voice as she looked out at Maci and Nolan in the yard.
I’d barely been able to convince Maci to stop long enough to eat.
Charleigh hummed in agreement. “Nolan has been begging for another kid to play with since his best friend moved away last fall.” She shook her head in awe. “And now he has Maci who is basically his cousin? Someone who’s going to be in his life forever? I can’t imagine anything more beautiful than that.”
As I sat there at the outdoor table between Raven and Charleigh, I wasn’t even sure it was discomfort I was itching in any longer.
It was just a shifting.
A changing of my reality.
An altering of the things I’d imagined for my life.
As if the building blocks of my foundation were being restructured. Rearranged to become something entirely different.
Unfortunately, it was an upheaval I hadn’t asked for, and it was one that I certainly couldn’t stop or change.
That was so much of life, though, wasn’t it? Wanting or loving something or someone so desperately and having no control over whether that love was found or remained or if it would be stolen away?
I guessed the most painful part was so much of myself had been stolen over the years.
My innocence.
My belief.
First Jana.
Then my sister.
And now Maci.
I stared out at my niece where she was at the top of the fort, shouting down at Nolan, “I am the princess of the castle!”
From the ground, Nolan wielded a foam sword. “I’ll save you from the dragon, Princess Maci!”
“I don’t need no savin’. It’s my dragon, and I already trained him, and I ride on him all the way high in the sky to that mountain over there at his big cave.”
She swung her arm around to the mountain peak that showed through the trees.
Laughter rolled from Raven. “Ooh, our princess is a little firecracker. Just the way we like them.”
“If she’s going to be surrounded by all these burly brutes her entire life, she’s going to have to be. Show them who’s actually in charge.” Charleigh took a sip of her margarita, slanting a sly grin our way. “Apparently, Raven learned that from a very young age.”
Raven hoisted a playful shoulder. “What can I say…I’ve had these bad boys wrapped around my finger since I was nine years old.”
“You’ve known them since you were nine?” Surprise jutted out of my mouth as my gaze drifted to the group of men who were huddled over near the high wooden fence, chatting quietly.
Whispering maybe, as if whatever they were saying was to be held in secret.
“Yep. We started living in this abandoned warehouse when I was nine…right after River had snatched me away from my abusive father. It’s when we met all of them…” She pointed at the group. “Plus Cash, who you haven’t met yet. He’s a little more private than the rest.”
She said it all so casually while I felt stunned.
Floored by her easy confession.
“You were…homeless when you were nine…and living with River?”