Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
The minute I saw him in my rearview mirror, less than a couple of feet away, I jacked the music up—still impressed as hell at the bass in the new Yukon—and smiled widely at the man that looked in the window at me like I was fucking nuts.
“Turn that off!” he yelled over the music.
I shook my head and kept pace with him.
Reflexively, I looked down at the speedometer, and nearly gawked when I saw he was running ten miles an hour.
“You’re running so fast!” I yelled at him. “You really are Rocky!”
He tossed me an impatient look, sweat pouring down his face, and then did something I never thought he’d do.
He lifted his hand in the air like Rocky did once he reaches the top of the stairs, and I burst out laughing.
“Go park before you wreck your new SUV,” he said impatiently.
I giggled, turned the music down, and then pulled around him to go park at my project house.
It was the first time I’d been back since I’d lost my hand and was crucified—and I was nervous as hell.
I’d had a long road to recovery, and when I was finally okay to be on my own two feet, I had a brand new baby with a lot of medical issues to care for.
It was hard to believe that it’d been a year since I’d had her.
Then all nervousness flew out the window the minute I heard my Adrienne crying in the backseat.
Adrienne was a year old now, but she was a little behind developmentally.
She was a little bit of a thing, too. It was hard to see my baby with all of these problems that stemmed from the fact that she was premature.
She had asthma. She wore glasses. She wasn’t crawling yet, but by the way she was rocking on her hands and knees, it was coming any minute.
At first we thought she’d have to have open heart surgery due to a hole in her heart when she was born, but over her one hundred and eighteen-day neonatal intensive care unit stay, the hole decreased in size until, eventually, it was closed completely. All on its own.
Getting out of my SUV, I walked to the back door and opened it to find a very unhappy Adrienne staring at me.
“What?” I asked her softly.
She screamed louder, and I sighed, backing up until Dean arrived.
“Sorry,” he laughed as he reached inside to get Adrienne out of her car seat.
See, Adrienne had a thing. She liked waking up in the arms that she fell asleep in. Meaning if she fell asleep in Dean’s arms, she liked to wake there, and if she didn’t, we knew to expect her to be grumpy when she woke up
It also meant that whoever had been holding her was the one to get her out of the car seat, or she’d let you know how unhappy she was with you.
She also didn’t have a clear favorite. She loved both of us the same, but she had that one quirk that sometimes made her difficult to handle.
I loved being a mother, though.
It was, however, hard to do at times with one hand.
I’d managed it, sure, but it wasn’t easy.
One didn’t know how hard it was to put a diaper on a squirming baby until you had to do it one handed.
I had to learn to do a lot of everyday tasks all over again.
Writing, for instance.
Since I was left-handed, I had to learn how to write right-handed.
Instead of shoes with laces, it was just easier to get slip ons.
Then there was taking a shower.
Who the hell knew it would be so hard to wash your hair with one hand? Of all my challenges, I never expected that one to be one of the most difficult ones I had to face.
Thankfully, I had Dean who helped me tremendously.
Then there was my brother, who’d also been a Godsend.
It was Dean, though, who changed my life.
Not only had he not stopped until he found me, but he also didn’t stop until I was healthy again.
It’d been just four short months ago that he’d returned to work after taking nearly eight months off.
He’d returned to the SWAT team a lot earlier than that, and with everything I’d been through, I’d managed to come to terms with this important part of who Dean was. Besides there were some benefits.
Such as his uniform.
Most wouldn’t think that black tactical pants, boots and polo shirts were sexy.
They’d obviously never seen Dean in full SWAT uniform.
All those sexy bulging muscles fit into a tight pair of pants and shirt, was breathtaking.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Dean asked, snapping me out of my contemplation of his body.
“I was looking at your shoes,” I lied.
He rolled his eyes, knowing full well I was lying, and started walking into the house he’d been fixing up without me.