Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“He was facing the vanity, and you weren’t meant to look!” I swear, I only rounded the corner of the attached bathroom for a nanosecond before closing down the FaceTime app.
The instant I realized Brodie was naked, Amelia’s access to him was denied.
“Ah… he has a thigh gap and enough length for his johnson to dangle between them.” She clicks her fingers together, praises the lord, then closes her eyes to relive the memory. “Shadows also can’t be misinterpreted. If you don’t believe me, ask the guy who sent me that beach dick pic.” Her next words are barely audible through her snorting laughs. “It must have been really cold that day!”
“Amelia!”
“Okay. I’ll stop. I’m sorry.”
She’s a damn liar.
“Not about anything I said about Brodie,” she murmurs when she spots my expression. “I’ll never be sorry about that. I’m preempting the apology I’ll need to give you when he finally pulls his head out of his ass and ruins your insides with his foot-long sub.”
It is not the time for me to laugh, but I can’t help it. She is hilarious when jealous.
“I appreciate your belief that he wants to jackhammer my uterus, but—”
My head slings to the side when a tiny voice says, “What’s a jackhammer?” Lucy enters my room, climbs onto my bed, then peers up at me with her adorable face no longer covered with flour. “Is that the name of Uncle Thane’s new cat?” I warn Amelia to keep her mouth shut with a glare when Lucy screws up her nose and says, “I thought it was called clit slap.”
With Amelia on the verge of cracking, I mouth that I’ll call her later before shutting down my phone and directing Lucy’s focus to something more suitable for a child her age. “Tate the Tortoise or Barry the Bandicoot?”
She points to the beach towel with bandicoots printed on it before asking, “What’s a bandicoot?”
“A bandicoot is a marsupial that lives in Australia and the New Guinea region.” Lines indent her nose when I say, “They kind of look like big rats, but they’re much cuter and a lot more sanitary.”
I take a mental note to choose better words when she asks, “What does sanitary mean?”
“It means they’re clean.” I tug on her ponytail we fixed into place this morning before she asked me to help her make her father breakfast for the third time this weekend. My heart broke the first morning when she said, “Mommy made him breakfast all the time.” She sounded very confident, so I wasn’t expecting a whispered “I think” to arrive shortly after. “Kind of like your hair. Where did the flour go? I thought we were meant to be twins today?”
“We were.” Her bottom lip droops. “But Daddy said Grandma Stell would be upset if she couldn’t see my golden locks.” She blinks back tears before confessing, “My mommy had golden hair.”
I wait, confident her sentence is not finished.
I don’t often hate being right, but today is that day.
“I think.”
“That’s okay. I love your golden hair too.” She peers up at me when I say, “And thanks to Ms. Mitchell, we have heaps of flour, so there’s always next time. Okay?”
She nods. “Okay.”
I smile, loving how easy she is to pacify. She has been a dream the past three days. It is like I have a new best friend. She is just several years younger than me—although our age gap isn’t that much different from mine and Brodie’s.
Even though that should put Brodie’s apprehension into perspective, it does little to douse the flames that ignited in my stomach when my eyes landed on him for the first time. He’s a wonderful father, and when he’s not dodging me like the plague, he’s funny and incredibly endearing.
Those should have been the first clues that he isn’t divorced. Who in their right mind would give up the ultimate representation of manliness? He’s protective, sweet, and insanely attractive. A true triple threat.
When Lucy giggles at my loved-up expression, I ruffle her hair before asking, “Did you remember to pack your swimsuit? I hear there’s water where we’re going.”
“There is. Grandma Stell has a huge pool and a lake!”
As I follow her to her room to fetch her things, I say, “But we’re only swimming in the pool, right?”
She shrugs.
That’s it. A teeny, tiny shoulder lift.
“Luc…”
A wolf whistle leaves my mouth as Brodie guides his truck down the driveway of a stately manor. His in-laws’ residence is huge, and the driveway is littered with expensive cars.
“It’s just a barbecue,” Brodie assures me when I lower my eyes to the overlarge shirt I’m wearing as a dress. I jazzed it up with a belt, but it is still as casual and low end as it gets.
His arm brushes my thigh when he leans over to lower the radio. We were running late, and we didn’t have time to move Lucy’s booster seat to the middle of the single cab, so I’m riding bitch.