Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
It was likely a simple truth, but the truth nonetheless.
If we were in a wreck on the bike, there’d be no way in hell that I could live with myself if anything had happened to Ellen because she didn’t have the helmet. At least, if I gave her the helmet, it meant that she had more of a chance if something were to go wrong.
But that was not the way to be thinking when you had your girl on the back of your bike for the first time in fourteen years, even if she was reluctantly along for the ride.
“Are we going to go?”
That was asked directly into my ear, and I shivered as I heard her whispered words so close to my neck. The place where she used to bury her face when I made her come. The place where she used to whisper all of her secrets, wishes and wants.
“Yeah,” I grunted, then started the bike up.
Her arms tightened around my gut at the roar of the motor, and she squealed when I dropped it into first and accelerated out of the parking lot.
Her shout of exultation was enough to make my entire heart feel like it exploded with happiness, unicorns, and fucking kittens.
It took me five minutes on the dot to get to the movie theater and thirty seconds to realize that neither Linc nor his mother were there.
“Son of a bitch,” I grumbled, pulling to a halt at the very back of the lot after making two quick rounds.
“How about you call him before you get all bent out of shape,” Ellen suggested.
I glanced up at her.
“I guess so,” I grumbled, pulling my phone out of my pocket.
Linc didn’t answer on the first ring. Nor the second. Not even on the fifth.
When I called a second time, he didn’t answer any of those times, either.
“Shit,” I grumbled. “Shit, piss, fuck, ass.”
Ellen giggled at my back, and I patted her leg.
“Not the time to laugh, darlin’,” I informed her. “How about you get on your phone and ask your girls to keep a lookout for him. I’ll call the boys.”
She did as I requested without texting.
“No Naomi?” I asked.
Ellen shook her head. “I don’t have her number.”
I frowned.
“She looked ready to move in the other day when I watched her go into your shop,” I pointed out.
Ellen bit her lip, and then shook her head.
“I sold her some stuff for their new house, but she returned all of it because Sean hadn’t liked the colors,” she explained.
I could read it on her face that wasn’t at all what she thought the real reason for returning those items was. Clearly Ellen thought it was because Sean didn’t want to have something of Ellen’s in his and Naomi’s home.
I, however, knew differently.
Ellen was still very much aware of those words that Sean had said to her, in a moment of panic, weeks and weeks ago, and it didn’t seem like she was any closer to letting it all go now than she was when those words had been said to her.
Before I could comment on the hurt I could see in her eyes, my phone rang, signaling one of the boys calling me back.
“You seen him?”
“I’m staring at your truck right now.”
Ghost.
He hadn’t been one of the ones I’d called myself, but apparently, Big Papa moved fast.
“Where is it at?”
The words he said next had the bottom dropping out of my stomach.
“At the hospital.”
My hand clenched on the handlebar of my bike, and I stared at the passing traffic on the road beyond and bit my lip. “You know if he’s okay?”
“I think it’s his mom,” he answered. “From what I was able to gather, there was an incident at the movies, and he had to drive her to the emergency room.”
“Fucking A,” I grunted. “Thank you. I’ll be there in five.”
We arrived in four minutes to find Ghost standing out front with my boy.
I parked under the portico and got off, walking quickly to my son.
“Dad…”
I gathered him up in my arms and squeezed him a little tighter than normal.
“Dad,” Linc wheezed. “I’m okay.”
I let go of him and pushed him slightly away, keeping my hands on his biceps as I studied his face.
“What happened?” I asked him.
“Mom…she…they won’t tell me anything other than she’s okay,” he admitted. “In the parking lot, she was acting funny. When we went to buy our tickets, she fell over and started to vomit all over herself. I did the only thing I could think of.”
I brought Linc back into my arms, then shoved him in the direction of my truck.
“Ellen,” I said, making eye contact with her. “Would you mind riding with Linc to your shop and showing him your not-really-a-husky?”
And keeping him busy.
The words weren’t voiced, but I knew she got my drift as she nodded and held out the crook of her arm.