Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
He stopped just inside the door and glanced back at me. “I can’t take you like that to go shopping for flowers and shit.”
I sat up quickly. “Flowers?”
He nodded. “You’ve seen my yard. Needs some work. Figure you’d already started fixing it up in your head.”
I swung my legs off the bed and stared at him as a smile stretched across my face so big that it hurt. “You’re serious?!” I squealed.
“Why would I lie about that? Now, get some clothes on before I forget what we are doing and we end up back in that bed.”
Jumping up, I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck. Yes, I had thought about all the flower beds and shrubbery that would dress the already-beautiful house up, but I hadn’t wanted to mention it. He had seemed put off by my doing it at the clubhouse.
“Thank you!” I said, pressing a kiss to his bearded jaw.
“You want to buy flowers, darlin’, you need to stop pressing your body on me,” he warned as one of his hands ran down my back.
Biting my lip, I stepped back, letting him go. “I’ll go get on some clothes.”
I caught his smirk before I turned to hurry to my bedroom and get ready. When the door opened, Ozzy came barreling in, almost knocking me over.
“Oz! Watch it!” Liam scolded him.
I bent over to pet him, feeling bad he’d been locked out for so long.
“Clothes, Liberty. Not a view of your ass stuck up in the air.”
Liam’s reminder sounded stern, but I grinned as I stood up and walked out the door with a slight swing of my hips just because I knew he was watching.
Ozzy fell into step beside me.
“You’d better be glad you have such a great ass, you dog thief,” Liam called out.
I laughed all the way to my room.
31
Liam
One rap on my office door, and it swung open. I had spent over an hour trying to figure out how Liberty had done that paperless bill filing. I should have had her show me. Expecting to see Tex or Drifter walk in, I turned to see Madeline instead. The happiness I felt at the sight of her vanished when I saw the expression on her face.
“Hello, Liam,” she said, walking inside and closing the door behind her.
She had been calling me Dad more and more lately. Being addressed as Liam meant the stern expression on her face was because of me. It didn’t take me asking her to know why. Saturday had come and gone without my telling her about Liberty. I’d been a little distracted with Liberty in my bed. Blaise sure didn’t give any leeway.
I stood up and walked around the desk. I didn’t like the formal feeling of talking to her with my office desk between us. She wasn’t business. She was my family.
“By your tone of voice, I’m taking it that Blaise told you about Liberty,” I said.
She tilted her head slightly to the left and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yes. My husband did tell me that my father was going to have another child. Why is it that my husband had to tell me? Why didn’t you tell me? This is kind of big news. Something that I should have heard from you.”
I really hadn’t wanted it to happen this way. She was angry and probably hurt. Disappointed in me. A host of shit that I hadn’t even thought of yet.
I motioned at the chair. “Have a seat. Let me explain,” I said.
She moved over and sat down, crossing her legs. “I’m listening.”
There was no way to make this sound good. I couldn’t sugarcoat it.
Sighing, I sat in the chair across from her and leaned back.
“A little over two months ago, I stopped at a bar on my way back from Miami. I was on my Harley, and the rain got too heavy. Anyway, the bartender was attractive. She made me laugh. I enjoyed talking to her. Her boss sent her home early, but she didn’t have a ride. I gave her one. She was living in a motel because she and her boyfriend had broken up due to his cheating on her a few weeks prior and they’d been living together.” I paused.
How was I supposed to explain this? A sexy-as-fuck woman invited me in, and I kissed her, then peeled her tank top off?
“You had sex with her,” Madeline said. “Got that part. Continue.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Well, I left before she woke up. Figured I’d not see her again. She was young. Too young for me to be messing with. And I had my first date with the doctor lined up.”
“You’re aware my father-in-law is married to a much younger woman, and we are very close.”
I shook my head. “Fawn isn’t as young as Liberty.”