Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120838 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 604(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
“I’ll start with the bath,” she said and scurried away.
“Now you’ve worried Christine,” I accused.
“It wasn’t me who took off running.”
“No, it was you who chased me.”
He sighed and we were inside.
The warmth against my chill skin felt prickly.
I did need a hot bath.
Seriously.
Carefully, he crouched while tilting me, and let my legs go, but when I was on my feet, he held me steady with his arm around me.
“I can stand, Dair.”
He let me go only to slip the raincoat over my head (which would make one assume it was a poncho, when it was not).
Raising my arms hurt my back again.
Even so…
“I can take off my own stupid coat, Dair,” I snapped.
Before I could even begin to back away, he picked me up again.
It twinged my back.
Not good.
But again…
Even so.
“Dair, put me down,” I demanded.
He stopped in the hall and looked at me.
“Do you love me?”
Oh no.
A direct question.
I looked over his shoulder.
“Blake,”—he gave me a squeeze—“are ye in love with me?”
I turned on him as best I could in my position. “I don’t know how, since you’re insufferable, but I am.”
Oh my God.
Did I just dip down two inches because his shoulders sagged in relief?
I didn’t have time to assess if I was correct.
He bent his head and kissed me.
He smelled like leaves and rain and Dair, and tasted like heaven, so I kissed him back.
Who could blame me?
When he broke it, he said, “Ye can share what ye want. Ye can hold what ye like. I ken who my Blake is. I love her, she loves me. From here on, that’s all that matters.”
Oh God.
I was not going to cry.
Regrettably, my eyes did not take direction.
So I shoved my face in Dair’s neck and wept all the way to the bathroom.
I was lying on my back on a heating pad on my bed.
Dair was lying beside me, on his side, up on a forearm, his thumbs moving over his phone screen.
I’d had my bath, my whisky, my pain pills, and yes, Dair had undressed me and set me in the tub himself. He’d then gone to get the other stuff from Christine, along with my book, and made me stay in there for a full hour, coming in occasionally to add more hot water so it would never go cool.
And yes.
The man hadn’t even let me reach to the faucets of a bathtub to warm up my own bath.
Therefore, by the time he decided I was done, my back was feeling a whole lot better.
Even though I insisted this was the case, he toweled me down and brought me panties and pajamas, helped me into both, and then he took me to the heating pad.
As in, carried me.
Where I was now.
I heard the whoosh of him sending the text, he twisted, put his phone on the nightstand, and came back to me.
“Talked Mum down from disowning me, though to do it, I had to promise we’d be at her dinner table for Sunday supper.”
My brows went up. “Sunday supper?”
“Aye. We’ll fly up Saturday night from Dublin.”
Um…
“Dublin?”
“I’m calling a match there Saturday. You’re coming with me.”
My eyes narrowed. “I am?”
“Ye are, lass,” he stated blithely. “We’ll fly out Friday from Bristol. Fly to Edinburgh Saturday night. Have dinner with Mum and Davi Sunday. And if ye need to be here, we’ll load up Sorcha and drive down Monday.”
“Have it all planned, do you?” I asked.
“Well…aye,” he answered like my question indicated I had a screw loose. “In the meantime, you’re resting that back.”
“It’s just a tweak, Dair. I’m fine,” I dismissed it.
In answer, his hand came to my face.
And I lay very still under his touch as he tenderly swept a thumb under my eye, only for his hand to move to my side where he glided his knuckles gently over my ribs.
“My woman’s not sleeping,” he said softly, and my breath hitched. “Only days since she left me, I can see she’s lost weight. She runs from me, I tackle her after she wrenched her back. And I made her run from me. Twice. Not doing such a good job at looking after you, my love.”
My love.
Now totally finding it hard to breathe.
“Dair,” I whispered.
“What I said earlier, about making a promise to Mum I’d sort this, that wasn’t what drove me back to you. I told myself I was giving you time. But I hurt ye and I didnae ken how to fix it. I was going to come to ye as soon as I figured out how to fix it.”
He was going to come back to me.
I started to turn to him, and he scowled.
“Stay still,” he rumbled.
“Honestly, I feel better,” I assured.
“You need to rest it and you’ll be resting it,” he commanded.
Whatever.
I settled back and started, “Dair—”
He interrupted me.
“Though, feel it necessary to note, I might have had a clue in how to fix it if you’d answered one of my texts or phone calls.”