Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 71015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71015 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
My mom was a dreamer. She only ever saw the best in people. She had a dream for me and my sister, and that was to marry someone that loved us like my father loved her.
And with each new guy she met when it came to the two of us, the more she hoped that we could find that.
I could practically hear the plotting going on in my mother’s head.
However, Sebastian and Kettle were quick to explain that they were both married, and mom figured out pretty quick that all of my attention was focused on Grayson, not the other two men.
“It’s very nice to meet you in person, Grayson,” my mother said sagely, eliciting a chuckle from the two men behind me.
“So, you’ve heard of me,” he stated forlornly.
She smiled widely at him. “Yes. From my husband and my daughter. Good things from one, not so good things from the other.”
I snorted.
The good things sure as fuck weren’t muttered from my father’s mouth.
To this day, four years after the incident, he still spoke about it.
But with what Grayson said next, I knew I’d fight my daddy tooth and nail if it came down to it.
“You’re looking beautiful, Mrs. Doherty. I’ll bet you look good wearing a gun. You can use your baton on me anytime,” Grayson said cheekily.
A smile overtook my mother’s face. One that nearly blinded me in its intensity.
I knew right then that I was in love with him.
Fuck that it’d only been three months. Fuck that I’d only seen him for an hour a day tops, once a week. That was enough.
If the man could make my mother laugh when she was getting a treatment, a woman whom had never even met him until five minutes before, was a freakin’ miracle worker.
One of the few.
My father was just going to have to suck it up, ‘cause I was totally marrying this guy.
Chapter 6
If my mouth offends you:
I’m sorry.
I’ll try to do better
1 and 2 are lies.
4. You’re a pussy.
-Torren to Sebastian
Torren
“Someone has a crush,” Sebastian goaded as we walked out of the cancer center.
I turned my head to him and smiled unrepentantly. “That woman makes my cock hard for hours.”
Kettle made a gagging sound and I bared my teeth at him.
Which caused him to laugh. “Have you ever heard of TMI?”
“What’s TMI?” I asked, batting my eyes at him.
He grunted.
“So what’d you learn from Cleo about your brother?” He asked as we approached the truck.
I got into the back before answering. “Not fucking much. He started there a few months after Cleo did. He came here when his mother got sick, but also to ‘meet his father.’ And he hasn’t been able to get much else out of him.”
I saw Sebastian’s frown in the mirror. “So why didn’t he tell you?”
“Cleo says he wanted more to go on before he got my hopes up. Ross doesn’t know about me. All Ross knows is that his father lives around here and is a member of The Dixie Wardens,” I explained, thinking about all the time that’d been wasted.
I’d always been an only child.
When I was younger, I’d dreamed of a brother or sister.
My mother had been all I had, and most of the time she was at work or too busy while she was at home dealing with prospective clients.
I’d wished, many times, that I had someone to be bored with.
Only on rare occasions was I able to visit my father, and it was even rarer to stay overnight with him. Most of the time he came over to us, spending time with me only under my mother’s hawk-like supervision.
Back then, it’d been normal. Now, though, I knew that it was not normal.
“Still, though. I’d have thought he’d have told you the second he suspected,” Kettle wondered.
I’d felt that way at first, too. However, after thinking it over, I knew Cleo had only been looking out for me. Most likely his partner, too.
“How’d you find out you had a brother?” Sebastian asked offhandedly.
I winced, remembering how I’d found out.
It hadn’t been by my father telling me on his own free will, that’s for sure.
It’d slipped out during a fight between my mother and father the summer before she’d been diagnosed with cancer.
I’d gone inside, on one of his rare visits, and had returned via the backyard because I’d wanted to show my father the new bike I’d picked up at the junk yard earlier that week.
I’d been in the process of rolling it around the back corner when I’d heard my mom hiss at my dad that she still loved him, but could never forgive him for fucking some ‘sweet butt’ and knocking her up.
“I overheard my parents fighting one day when I was young,” I muttered distractedly, watching the traffic pass by out the side window.
“Your folks were divorced, weren’t they? Ever since I’ve known Booney, he’s been alone,” Sebastian stated.
I shrugged. “Yeah, they divorced when I was a kid. When my ma died, I was supposed to live with my dad, but spent most of my time with my Paw because I was such a shit head.”
“I can’t see that at all,” Kettle drawled.
A grin split my face wide. “I’m not that bad.”
“So tell me, Grayson, what’s going on with that girl?” He asked as he pulled through the intersection just in time to miss the car that careened towards us, missing us by only inches.
However, the car did not miss the light pole.
It hit the pole hard.
So hard, in fact, that the light pole swayed side to side, before falling down into the middle of the intersection, causing three cars to slam into it.
“Fuck,” I hissed as the destruction played out in front of me.
Kettle wasted no time stopping in the middle of the road, flipping his lights on, and throwing the parking break before we all bailed out.
Vaguely, I heard Sebastian calling into his mic at his right shoulder, but I was focused on getting the bag and putting gloves on my hands to pay much attention.