Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 185811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 929(@200wpm)___ 743(@250wpm)___ 619(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 185811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 929(@200wpm)___ 743(@250wpm)___ 619(@300wpm)
“I didn’t give Roxie away ’cause Herb horned in on that action,” Tex went on, referring to his niece and Hank’s wife.
“Herb’s her father,” Hank pointed out.
“Yeah, well, she’s got two arms, am I wrong?” Tex noted.
He was not.
“And if I get Lottie to the altar and change my mind,” Tex continued, “when I’m asked who gives her away, I can punch this guy in the face and take off with her.”
On that he jerked his head Mo’s way.
But on that, I was having second thoughts about asking Tex to give me away because Tex was unpredictable, and this sounded shocking, but with him, nothing was out of the realm of possibility.
“I’d really rather you not do that, Tex,” I told him.
“Then you better be really fuckin’ good to her,” he told Mo.
“We haven’t even been out on a date!” I snapped.
Tex finally looked down at me. “Don’t try that shit with me, girl. I’ve been in on it since the beginning. I’m not sure Lee and Indy have even been on a date yet, and they’ve been married for years and got two kids.”
“You really kinda haven’t, have you?” Hank asked Lee.
“Can we talk about the lunatic with a basement covered in plastic sheets?” Mitch asked.
And my body went ice-cold.
“A word. Now,” Mo grunted, and didn’t wait for Mitch to agree to said word.
He turned on his bare foot and stalked to the back door.
Mitch looked to me, the men, and followed.
Brock went after him.
“You didn’t know?” Eddie murmured to me.
I stared at the dining room table.
“Lottie, querida, you didn’t know?” Eddie repeated.
I tipped my eyes up to him. “Plastic sheets?”
Eddie’s face got hard and he looked to Lee.
Tex’s big mitt fell on my shoulder and squeezed.
“He was…he was getting ready to follow through, wasn’t he?” I asked.
Eddie looked back to me.
“Yeah, Lottie,” he said gently.
“Oh my God,” I breathed.
Tex pulled out the chair beside me and settled his bulk into it.
His hand covered mine on the table.
“Safe now, girl. All good,” he low boomed.
I stared at his hand covering mine.
“Lottie, look at me,” Tex urged.
But something was wrong with me.
“Lottie, my girl, look at me,” Tex repeated.
“I love you, Tex, you know that, don’t you?” I said to our hands.
“I do, darlin’, and I love you too,” Tex replied.
The astonishing and magnificent event of Tex actually saying the words and not getting tongue tied and feeling awkward at open emotion didn’t even register with me.
“I love you, Eddie, you know that,” I told Tex and my hands. “I love you for my sister and my nephews and I love you for me too.”
“Love you too, sweetheart,” I heard Eddie murmur as I felt my hair gently pulled off my shoulder and a hand land reassuringly on my neck.
I wasn’t reassured.
“I love all you guys,” I said.
No one replied but I felt the goodness all around me.
It just didn’t work.
“I need Mo,” I whispered in a voice even I barely heard.
“Sorry, darlin’?” Tex asked.
Abruptly, I turned my gaze to his, totally lost the hold I’d been keeping now for a week, and shrieked, “I need Mo!”
The back door opened even before Vance and Ren took off toward it.
I heard heavy, fast steps then I was in strong arms and after that I was sitting in a wide lap, burrowing into a big body, trembling from head to toe.
“Victim’s Assistance?” I heard Hank ask quietly.
“Give her a minute,” Mo replied in the same tone, holding me close but pulling me closer. Then in my ear, “What do you feel?”
Terrified.
Plastic sheets.
His arms tightened further. “What do you feel, sweetheart?”
“Y-you.”
“Me,” he agreed. “Where am I?”
“R-right here.”
“Right here. With you. Are you safe?”
I forced myself to nod, but the movement felt foreign, like I’d never done it before.
And I couldn’t stop shaking.
Man, it was so cold.
“Get her sister here,” Mo ordered.
“On it,” Eddie said.
“And her mom,” Mo went on.
“Got that,” Tex replied.
“I’m okay. I’ll b-be okay. Don’t worry them,” I said to Mo’s chest.
“Lottie?”
“Y-yeah?”
“Shut up.”
“’Kay.”
Still trembling (okay, more like shaking), I pushed closer to Mo.
And he held on.
CHAPTER 11
I HIT THE MOTHER LODE
Mo
“Fuck, Mo. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
Lawson hit him with that the second his foot hit the ground floor after he left Lottie in bed with her mother and sister.
Mo looked to the man.
He looked wrecked.
Mitch Lawson was about doing what he could to make things right, not the other way around.
Freaking Lottie like that wasn’t in his DNA and knowing he did gutted him.
But that was on Mo.
She’d shown her level of fear that first night.
He should have known something like this would happen and the second Mitch and Slim showed, he should have been on that.
“I know you didn’t,” Mo replied. “She knows you didn’t. She’s a together woman. Puts on a tough front. Even I didn’t know she wasn’t hangin’ in there, Mitch. And you couldn’t know, Lottie bein’ how she is, that we hadn’t kept her up to date. That’s on me. I should have warned you. But like I told you outside, she doesn’t know anything. The first letter, that’s it.”