Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
I’d waited for him to say something about the things around the house that had appeared since I’d started working there. Like the hand-knit throw that Clara and I had bought at a farmers’ market from a young woman who made them all one of a kind. It was bursts of colors—pinks, purples—delicate flowers, sprawling vines, ladybugs. It did not go with the muted décor that Beau obviously chose for function rather than form.
He fingered the throw, picked up the shells. I watched him do both. So did Clara, resulting in her launching into the backstory of each item and his eyes crinkling at the edges, his mouth tipped up as he listened raptly to his daughter.
He didn’t say anything to me, no sharp words thrown, no reprimand.
The treasures stayed where they were. Clara and I cuddled up on the throw routinely. And when Beau was home at night, and I made myself scarce because I didn’t know what to do with myself, I caught glimpses of him cuddled up under the throw with Clara. Watching her small body tucked into his, his lips on her hair, stroking her back… It did things to my ovaries.
He was so big, so gruff, so fucking rude.
But to his daughter, he was her protector, her hero, her everything. He gave her smiles, unconditional love, and affection.
And somehow, he looked even more masculine cuddling his daughter underneath a fucking floral throw.
Yes, I spent a lot more time thinking about Beau Shaw than I should’ve. I should’ve been making my plans for the future. For going back to school. Budgeting what that would look like, whether I’d need another job. Figuring out how to get myself divorced from a toxic narcissist who didn’t want me to move on. Things like that.
But I didn’t.
I thought of Beau Shaw, cuddled with his daughter. I thought of Beau Shaw, making me pancakes. I thought of Beau Shaw, his finger brushing mine and the electric shock that came from it.
And after a long and wonderful day with Clara, a belly full of nourishing food, exhaustion heavy in my limbs because that girl had boundless energy, house clean and quiet, I should’ve been in my room. In my bed.
Except I wasn’t.
I stayed in the kitchen.
I didn’t know why. Masochism, maybe? Because I was starved for adult contact and was willing to settle for a few seconds with an asshole? Because my fucked-up brain craved a glimpse of Beau before I went to sleep? Because the only male attention I’d ever received was tinted with cruelty, and I’d come to crave it?
My heart rate spiked as headlights lit up the living room. I’d straightened everything up, leaving my book on the coffee table to pick up once I’d made my mug of tea.
It was a dance I’d timed perfectly, since I’d been doing it more and more lately. It wasn’t calculated, exactly. It was pathetic, probably. I kept thinking if I gave Beau the chance, he’d be nice to me. He’d like me. Or I’d like him. Because I didn’t. But I dreamed of him. It was him I thought of when I quietly made myself orgasm at night, the act feeling naughty and tawdry in Beau’s house.
The door opened and closed. I heard his footsteps enter the living room. Heard them pause as he presumably saw me in the dim light of the kitchen. My head was down as I poured tea, so I looked up, hopefully with a bland and calm look on my face.
“Hi.” I toyed with the string of my tea bag. “I was just making tea then going to bed.”
State the obvious much? I always felt like an awkward teenager around him. Which I’d never really been. I’d had friends. Been sociable, bubbly even. I’d done a lot of work to mask my pain, my lack of self-confidence.
Waylon had seen that. It had attracted him to me at first but was a skin I was supposed to shed as his wife. Once the ring was on my finger, I was supposed to look to him for validation, self-worth. He tore off little pieces of me I thought were fused to bone.
It had taken a long time to regrow into the shape of the woman I’d once been.
And Beau stripped it all back, exposing who I was underneath it all. Small. Uncertain. I hated it. Him showing me I was still a broken little girl beneath it all, one who just wanted to be liked by the older, authoritative man.
Yes, since my father left when I was five, I’d had daddy issues with a capital D. That wasn’t pertinent, I told myself. I wasn’t that predictable.
Beau didn’t say hi. He just stayed in the living room, rooted in place, staring at me. I felt his ire at my daring to be in this shared space when he was home. Apparently, there was an unwritten rule that we do our best not to be around each other when Clara was asleep. The debacle in this very kitchen this morning was great evidence as to why.