Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 129408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129408 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 431(@300wpm)
Well, the two things I wanted.
Luke and tequila number thirteen.
Right now, though, I wanted more than anything for my best friend to be okay.
The two flights had been the longest ten hours of my life. I wanted to scream for how helpless I was, thousands of feet in the air, unable to do anything.
And that was on me.
“Excuse me, coming through,” I shouted, almost bowling over an elderly lady with a hatbox. I didn’t have the time to feel bad. “Sir, if you’d kindly get the fuck out of my way,” I requested pleasantly to the man who’d decided to turn getting his bag from the overhead locker into a process as complicated as splitting the atom.
Both he and my friend the flight attendant scowled at me. Most of the passengers smiled at me. I was just saying what everyone else stuck behind this idiot was thinking.
As I pushed past him, I smiled at Mrs. Perfect Brows. “You have a fulfilling life enforcing the law 30,000 feet up,” I said to her.
I didn’t get her response because I was out of the plane and sprinting to get to whoever was waiting for me on the other side.
In my worry about Lucy, I forgot that I had a wrath-filled brother waiting for me. I was reminded of that once I entered the arrivals section and saw him, standing wide-legged with his arms crossed, two feet of space all the way around him, despite the fact that LAX was packed. His fury, not to mention his leather cut, created a force field that people purposefully avoided.
His furious gaze landed on me and I ignored it, running up to him.
“How is she?” I demanded, expecting him to start walking toward the exit so we could get to Lucy.
Instead, he stayed rooted to the spot, not moving, face a mask of masculine alpha fury. I was used to it. It was almost a default with me.
Something inside me softened at seeing that again. My badass, cranky, and loyal-to-the-bone brother. In the flesh. It was the longest I’d been away from him. From everyone.
“She’s still unconscious but through the worst,” he finally grunted, saying every word through clenched teeth.
My entire body, which had been wound up tighter than Mrs. Eyebrows’ chignon, sagged at the news. “So she’s going to be okay?” It was more a prayer than a question.
He nodded once, curtly and stiffly.
I sagged some more, exhaling the breath I’d been holding for hours. Then I snatched the tree trunk he had for an arm in an attempt to pull him toward the exit. The action was the exact same thing as yanking at a tree trunk. It didn’t move.
“Cade!” I whined. “Forget about being mad at me for like two-point-five seconds and let’s go. You can yell at me in the car.”
He didn’t move. Nor did he speak. He just stared at me in that way that had all his enemies quivering in their boots, before they pissed their pants.
It didn’t work on four people: his wife Gwen, his two infant children, who literally laughed in the face of his wrath, and me.
“Cade, you—”
I was going to protest some more when he moved. He didn’t shout or curse or tell me what an irresponsible idiot I was. Instead he hugged me. Hard. I was pretty sure I heard some bones in my back crack with the force of it.
I relaxed into it, wrapping my arms against his iron body, clutching at the leather that was the backdrop of my childhood. I took a deep inhale, motor oil, smoke and nostalgia creeping into my nostrils.
Home.
It wasn’t a place to me.
It was people. A lot of them. One of my favorites, clutching me to him as if he sensed I needed a vacation from all the horrors chasing me and all those I carried with me. I was safe from all of them for the duration of that hug.
Cade pulled back and looked down at me with a stare that, to the outside observer, would look empty and full of menace. Though the outside observer would take into account all of his tattoos, his sheer height and size, and the rough stubble on his sharp chin, plus his motorcycle cut, and add all that into the equation. But I knew better than all that. I knew that was the mask he wore when he was feeling a little too much and didn’t want to let the world see it.
“I was so fuckin’ worried about you,” he growled, kissing my forehead.
“No need. I’m always okay,” I said with false cheer designed to calm his worries.
He stared at me, the way only someone who shared your blood could. “No, kid, you always make sure you act okay. It’s not the same thing.” His eyes searched me some more. “Fuck,” he whispered under his breath. “You’ve added more.”