Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
His eyes raked over me, like he was taking stock. The jerk.
“We need to talk.”
“It’s seven in the morning,” I snapped. “Couldn’t this wait until later?”
“Maybe if you’d answered any of my texts or calls, but clearly, you’ve been too occupied for that.”
“Yeah, I have work, and two boys who have practice after school every day. You know this.”
“Never stopped you from answering before.”
“What do you want, Dan?”
“What’s the deal with the guy?”
“What guy?”
“Don’t be coy with me, Rae. You know exactly who I’m talking about,” he snapped, a little too quickly. “The one who showed up at school the other day… the one you and the boys talked to at the diner.”
“And how do you know about that?”
“Because the boys told me... They tell me everything.”
He was full of it.
The boys didn’t tell him anything. There was no reason to. The man didn’t listen. Not the way a father should. He was too wrapped up in his own little world to care anything about theirs.
Knowing he’d pressed them for information on the man I’d been talking to took my aggravation to a whole new level. “Who I talk to is none of your concern, and you certainly have no right to come here and interrogate me about it.”
“I’m not interrogating you, Rae,” he shot back. “I’m asking about the stranger you’ve got around my kids.”
God, I hated when he called the boys my kids, like they were his and his alone. Like I hadn’t carried them for nine months and birthed them from my own body. Like I hadn’t fed them, changed them, and cared for them in every sense of the word. “You have some nerve.”
“Rae.”
“No. You don’t get to come here and pretend this is about concern about the boys when we both know this has nothing to do with them.”
For a second, something flashed through his eyes. Maybe it was frustration or something else entirely, but he pushed right past it. “You don’t know anything about this guy. You don’t know where he’s been or who he’s been with. He could be dangerous for all you know.”
His words hit hard because he was right.
I didn’t know him. Not really. He’d been pretty closed off about his past, only telling me that he was from Kansas City and he was on the road a lot. I knew there was more, and I had a feeling it wasn’t good. But he’d said it was a story for another day.
He could’ve been in trouble. He could’ve been on the run or had hurt someone. I had no idea. I only had my instincts, and they told me he was a good man and that I could trust him. I straightened my back and looked him dead in the eye as I asked, “And what do you know about him?”
“I know my kids have no business being around him when you’ve got no idea who he is.”
“So, you don’t know him… You don’t know him at all, and yet, you’re standing on my front porch, judging him like you do.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It is the point,” I snapped. “You don’t get to stand here and act like you’re the authority on who’s safe and who isn’t.”
“Rae, you’ve got two boys in that house, and…”
“I’ve always had two boys in that house, and we managed just fine.”
I wasn’t one hundred percent correct on my stance, far from it. Dan was right that I didn’t know much about Walker, and I needed to be careful, especially where the boys were concerned.
But I was winning this little debate of ours, so I decided to bring it home with the final punch. “You just don’t like the fact that I’m finally moving on.”
“That’s not what this is.”
“Isn’t it?”
I thought back to my night with Walker. I couldn’t remember the last time that being around a man had felt that simple, that easy. There were no questions I wasn’t ready to answer. No looks that made me feel like I owed him something. He just let me be, and somehow, that made me want to give him more.
Dan was just the opposite, and I was over it. “You don’t get to do this. Not anymore.”
“Do what?”
“Show up here and make demands like you still have a say.”
“I’m their father.”
“And you always will be, but that doesn’t give you the right to control what I do.” I stepped closer. “You’re building a whole new life with someone else, Dan. A new wife. A new house. A new baby…”
His eyes flickered with anger, but that didn’t stop me from adding, “And yet, you’re here questioning me on who I chose to spend my time with.”
For a second, he didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything he could say. He knew I was right. I was about to push further when I heard a faint creak behind me. One of the boys was up, and they were listening.