Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Mo, for the first time ever in that room, did not follow me.
He stayed close to Carla.
As I grabbed my purse to get out my phone, I watched out of the corners of my eyes and saw that he didn’t murmur reassuring words or offer to help hold the bag of ice or do anything but give her his solid, assuring presence.
But he gave her his solid, assuring presence. She was worried. She was in pain. And he gave her what he had to give.
All right.
Seriously.
I hoped that man was good in bed because I was totally falling in love with him.
I called Smithie to come and see to Carla.
After that, I turned, leaned back against my station, and watched Mo openly while I called my mom.
His silver gaze came to me.
And there it was.
A soft look from Mo.
Jeez, I so wanted to jump him.
I gave him a smile.
His eyes dropped to it, but he didn’t smile back.
And again, I wanted to pounce on him.
Mom answered the phone.
“Lottie? Is everything okay?”
She sounded awake and alert, but not alarmed. Just awake and alert even though I knew I had to have woken her.
This was because she was the mother of a Rock Chick and the Queen of the Corvette Calendar. She had a lot of practice with being woken up in the middle of the night, needing to do it and be alert.
“Hey, Mom. Sorry to call late, but Carla turned her ankle bad coming off stage tonight. Mo had a look at it and thinks she needs to have it checked at the hospital. She needs someone to go relieve her babysitter until she gets home.”
“Mo?”
Shit.
Wrapped up in all that was going on, I not only forgot about dinner on Sunday, I forgot I’d told Jet about Mo coming, but not my mother.
And obviously my sister had left relaying that news to me.
“My, uh…” I gave Mo big eyes.
His dark eyebrows shot up.
Dark brows that went with the dark stubble he normally sported (except at times like now, right after his shower, when he’d shaved) and then there was dark hair on his arms.
This possibly meant dark hair on his chest, and other, better places, something I could not wait to discover.
My thoughts turned to the choice he’d given me at our first meeting of being in the room with him while he showered. Considering current events, that was a choice I no longer had.
And that was a crying shame.
But indisputably prudent.
“New boyfriend,” I finished, my voice kinda husky.
His lips twitched before his attention turned because Smithie was bowling through the door.
The bossman didn’t even look at me. He went direct to Carla, concern evident on his face.
God, I loved that guy.
“You have a new boyfriend?” Mom asked in my ear.
I focused on the task at hand.
“She has a what?” I heard boomed over the phone before I could answer.
Tex was awake.
Not a surprise.
Definitely a wildcard.
Tex had no kids. Tex’s history was a long story, and not much of it, until he met Indy Nightingale, was good. And one could say, considering after he met Indy he’d been shot, clubbed in the head, kidnapped and blew up a warehouse, that wasn’t good for him either.
But Tex would tell you all that had been a hoot.
And Tex was the finest man who ever breathed.
But he was a character.
A booming character, in all ways that could be, including audibly.
And the years that he’d been involved with the Rock Chicks (this being from the beginning, when he rescued Indy after she was kidnapped, this being when he got himself shot for that effort), plus the years he’d been married to my mom, he’d adopted all of us.
Especially me and Jet.
He was not a man who would hold my hand at a fair and shout how he needed to get cotton candy for his best girl.
He was a man who would run into the burning building me, my sister or especially my mother was in, even if there was little chance he would find us alive.
He’d risk his life, and give it, to try.
Obviously, I adored him.
“You’ll meet him Sunday,” I told Mom. “Listen, can you help Carla out?”
“We’ll meet him Sunday,” I heard Mom say, not to me, to Tex. “His name is Mo,” she went on.
“Mo? Hawk Delgado’s Mo?” Tex boomed.
Shit.
Of course Tex knew Mo.
Great.
My eyes went to Mo to see him standing guard over Carla while Smithie prodded her ankle.
From Mom to Tex, “I don’t know, sweetheart.” To me, “Does this boyfriend work for Hawk Delgado?”
“Um…yeah,” I said.
“Yes,” Mom told Tex.
“Well, all right!” Tex bellowed. “Boy’s as big as a house, built tough as a tank and he ain’t no chatterbox. He’s over, I don’t gotta listen to him blather on about a play-by-play of the last Broncos game while I’m watchin’ me a Bruce Lee film. Tell Lottie I approve.”