 by Sheridan Anne.jpg)
Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Not gonna lie, I never pictured myself wanting to be with a man who has more baggage than an airport, but here we are. Sean Waters came storming into my ER with his little girl, limp in his arms, and the rest was history . . . kind of.
You know that baggage I mentioned? Yeah, that baggage is a real bitch.
Sean is a broken and tortured soul, barely holding on, but I see something worth saving.
I want to bring his happiness back, and if I just happen to fall for him along the way, someone better get ready to catch me. Because something tells me catching hold of Sean’s heart is like wishing for rain in a drought—almost impossible.
Sean
It’s been three long years since my wife died, leaving me with our newborn daughter, and I have made every mistake a father could make along the way.
I’m not perfect, but I’m giving it my all and trying for my little girl.
When Sara died, she took my heart and soul with her and I’ve never been able to get them back. I’ve become a shell of the man I once was, barely surviving, and if it weren’t for Georgia, I never would have made it out of the darkness.
When Georgie’s asthma returns and I rush her into the hospital, barely holding on, a beautiful nurse is there to save her life. Only it turns out, my daughter wasn’t the only person she was planning to save.
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Chapter 1
SEAN
The sound of my daughter’s wheezy breath fills the room and it fucking kills me to hear as she struggles to find peace in her sleep. Her asthma has been playing up a lot lately. We’ve already been to the hospital three times this month, and I fear it’s only getting worse.
It’s a battle we fight all year round, but the second winter set in, it was like torture for my little girl—in and out of the hospital when she should have been running around with her cousins, exploring the snow, and living the fullest life any three-year-old should. Instead, she sits and watches the other kids from the window, longing in her beautiful blue eyes.
All she wants to do is run.
God, she must think I’m a monster telling her no all the time. I just don’t know what to do. I wasn’t built to do this on my own.
I lay on her bedroom floor, reaching up to hold her little hand as she tries to sleep. Shadows dance across the ceiling, and all I can do to hold it together is stare at the picture of my dead wife on her bedside table.
My beautiful Sara.
She was ripped away from me three years ago, and I’ve spent every minute wishing I could get her back. I would sell my soul to the fucking devil just to hold her one more time, to feel her in my arms and hear her telling me she loves me. Sara was my sunshine, and ever since she’s been gone, I’ve been living in darkness. If it weren’t for Georgie . . . I don’t know where I’d be right now.
I miss her so damn much. I never planned for her to be nothing but a memory I struggle to hold onto. She was my rock, my world. When I lost my parents, she was the one to help me find my way, and now I’m barely keeping afloat. Without her, I’m an empty shell, and I crave to be the man I once was, but it’s not possible.
My heart aches just thinking about her and that emptiness inside of me only grows. But after three long years, I’m used to it. There comes a time when a man has to get on with life. He has to find a way to carry on, find a wave to survive, and for me, it was my daughter.
Sara hemorrhaged after an emergency C-section, and despite their vigorous efforts, the doctors couldn’t save her. I’ll never forget that day. It’s forever ingrained in my memory—what was supposed to be the most magical day of our lives, turned into pure devastation.
Every day without her is a challenge. I need her to tell me what to do. Am I doing the right thing with Georgia? Am I raising her the way she wanted? Have I given her the life that she would have wanted for her child?
Just give me a fucking sign, baby. God, I need you.
It kills me that our last hours together were during torturous labor, that she was fearful of what was to come and was in the greatest agony of her life. But knowing she had a chance to meet our daughter before she passed is bittersweet and something I’m sure Georgie will hold onto for the rest of her life. Hell, I know Sara held onto the image of her sweet baby girl in her arms as she took her final breath.
A vicious coughing fit tears through my sweet girl, and I rip my gaze away from the photograph of Sara. I fly to my knees, scrambling to the side of Georgie’s bed and desperately trying to sit her up. She clings to me, gasping for air as her lungs scream for Ventolin.
Tears fill her eyes, and it fucking kills me.
“Shhh, my sweet girl,” I soothe, reaching across to her bedside table and grabbing her inhaler and spacer. I place it to her lips and she instantly breathes in the life-saving Ventolin with slow deep breaths, something that’s become more than routine over the past couple of weeks.
My chest aches watching as she takes her slow breaths, listening to the soothing sound of my voice as I coach her through it. There’s nothing worse than watching your only child struggle to breathe—the most basic human instinct, and the fact that I can’t magically fix this for her only makes me feel as though I’m failing her. I’m her daddy, her whole world, and I can’t make her better or make the pain go away.
The moment she’s completed her treatment, I pull back and rest the inhaler on her bedside table, right where I can find it when this inevitably happens again.
Georgie looks up at me with big tears welling in her eyes, and it fucking destroys me. She clambers out of her bed and straight into my arms, and I grab the blanket to wrap around us both, not wanting her to get cold. “Daddy,” she cries, snuggling her face into my chest as I hold her tight, desperately wishing there was some way I could help her, but sometimes, this is all she needs.