Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 147967 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147967 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 740(@200wpm)___ 592(@250wpm)___ 493(@300wpm)
Her Little didn’t care about embarrassing herself. Her Little only cared about playing with her secret stash of toys. She glanced over at her closet and sighed sadly as she thought about her Lego stashed away in a box.
“Maya, come out please. Come on, Bébé.”
Oh God.
He was using French on her? And wasn’t Bébé baby? Was he trying to kill her right now? Her insides went all gooey and now that she thought about it, that word struck a memory.
Had he called her that before?
No, that was silly.
She was unable to resist going to him, though. He was like the Pied Piper, calling her.
Maya opened the door, but kept her gaze on her feet. She owed him an apology. “I’m so sorry I poisoned you. And that I ran away after.”
Seemed a bit of a habit of hers. And she shouldn’t have left him with the mess to clean up.
He sighed. “Maya, you didn’t poison me. Come on, Spitfire. Stop looking so dejected. Come into the living room. I ordered pizza.”
“I’m surprised you can eat after I destroyed your taste buds.”
“Will take more than a bit of chili to do that,” he reassured her. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and it took everything in her to resist melting into him. Why was he so huggable? It should be against the law to look that good and feel that amazing.
Really. He should leave something for the rest of them.
“Look, Maya.”
Look at what?
“Look at the fireplace.”
Huh? She glanced over at the fireplace. She’d only tried lighting it once. It had filled with smoke and scared the bejesus out of her. She knew that likely meant she needed her chimney cleaned, but there never seemed to be the money for that.
But sitting on the rug in front of the fireplace was . . .
“Tank,” she whispered.
Big B was with him, laying between him and the rest of the room.
Tears filled her eyes and she nearly let out a sob.
“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” Matthieu whispered. “He did it himself. Walked out of the room with Big B and lay down there. I notice you haven’t got any firewood anywhere. You should probably get that now for when it gets colder.”
He led her to the sofa as he spoke. There was a pizza box sitting on the coffee table. Dougie was sniffing at it from where he sat by the coffee table.
Dougie loved anything with cheese.
“Oh, I never use the fireplace.”
He paused. “You never use the fireplace? Do you have central heat?”
“No, I don’t. I tried to light it once and the room started to fill with smoke. But it’s all right, I have heaters.” Central heat would be amazing but she didn’t have the money to put that in.
“It filled with smoke?” He sounded choked up. Was that the chili affecting him? Oh God. She hoped she hadn’t permanently damaged his vocal chords.
“Are you all right? You sound all funny.”
“Probably because that fireplace is a hazard. It could set the whole house on fire!”
Was that his problem?
“Only if you light the fire. Which I don’t do.”
“You need to have the chimney cleaned,” he told her.
“I know.”
There was a beat of silence. She reached over and flipped open the lid of the pizza box. Yummy.
“You know?” he repeated.
“Um, yep.”
“Then why haven’t you done it?”
“Money.”
He sighed. “I don’t like that. I don’t like it at all.” But he grabbed a piece of pizza and sat next to her.
Maya shrugged. There wasn’t anything to like about it. But it was what it was.
They settled in to watch one of her favorite shows, where dogs got adopted from a shelter. She just loved all the happy endings for those doggies.
She glanced over at Tank again with a smile.
Maybe he’d gotten his happy ending too.
Matthieu felt her slump against him and then a soft snore hit his ears. Tank and Big Berry had already taken themselves off to bed and so had Gummy. Dougie was now asleep in front of the fire that wasn’t even lit. And Princess Priss was sitting on the other side of Matthieu, purring heavily.
He shook his head at himself. Who knew he could feel this content? He was living with a pig for God’s sake. Things didn’t get much weirder than that.
He'd thought Maya might fall asleep. He’d wanted to talk to her about what she’d said about herself earlier, but she’d seemed so defeated and tired that he’d decided to let it be.
For the moment, anyway.
Shifting around, he managed to get her into his arms before he stood.
Princess Priss looked up and gave him a disapproving look.
“You can go get into bed,” he told the cat.
With a swish of her tail and a haughty expression on her face, the cat jumped down and headed into his bedroom.