Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
I figured the second child I had would be completely different, though.
First, I would have the support of a man that deserved the title of “father.” Copper would in no way, shape, or form make my birth any harder than it needed to be. He’d also be there for all the nightly feedings, the dirty diapers, and anything else that arose.
Second, I would be well aware that postpartum depression was a possibility, and my doctor, Copper, and I would be very much aware of the changes in my health.
Third, I would know what it’s like to be a parent already. Holt had been the guinea pig. I’d had to do all the trial and error with him. When I got to the next baby, I wouldn’t have to figure out the hard way how to take care of a child.
I was so lost in thought that I wasn’t aware that the meeting had wrapped up until Keely said, “Baker, do you want to go get lunch?”
I looked up and smiled. “Of course.”
“I can watch Holt,” Rawlins offered.
“No, I got him. It’s nap time anyway, and all he’ll do is sleep.” Copper’s eyes came to me. “Bring me back something?”
I stood up and smiled. “Of course. What do you want?”
“Anything,” he said. “Unless y’all get pizza.”
Keely snickered. “I heard you like pizza now, though?”
The teasing in Keely’s tone had me grinning wide. “He’ll do anything for me.”
Copper’s eyes went lazy. “Damn right.”
After a kiss to the mouth that was quite possessive, Keely and I headed out, choosing to drive separately since she needed to get home and relieve Dima on baby duty.
We chose a little place downtown that supposedly had the best food imaginable, and I was overly excited as I drove deeper into the heart of Dallas.
“Turn right,” my GPS urged in his Australian accent.
I flipped on my blinker and slowed.
“Keep driving straight.”
An angry female voice from behind me startled me so badly that I followed her directions instead of taking the turn.
I glanced behind me and gasped when I saw Reign in my back seat.
She smiled at me and said, “Miss me?”
I swallowed. “Reign, I never knew you well enough to miss you. Why am I driving straight?”
I reached for my phone to call Copper, knowing he would want to know that Reign was in my Suburban, but never got the chance to because something cold and hard pressed against the base of my neck. “No.”
Nausea swirled in my gut.
Fuck.
“Pull off into that driveway right there.”
I did, getting farther and farther out of Dallas before she gestured toward an abandoned-looking parking garage.
“There, turn.” She pushed the gun into my neck.
I turned and came to a stop inside the parking garage.
What I saw in that parking garage made my blood run cold.
Twenty-Four
With a body like yours who needs hair.
—Text from Chevy to Copper
COPPER
“Hey, what’s up?” I answered the phone as quietly as I could.
Still, my quiet wasn’t quiet enough because Holt jolted, turned his head to the other side, and started shaking his head back and forth before he settled back down again.
“What’s up is that your cuckoo bird flew the cuckoo’s nest.” Webber sighed.
I didn’t need him to tell me who the ‘cuckoo bird’ was. Reign would always be that crazy person in my head.
I grinned. “Reign was released?”
“Reign wasn’t released. Reign snuck out in a laundry cart in the dead of night,” Webber said. “So, I just wanted to let you know in case she shows up. Doubt she’ll come around me seeing as I was the one to have her committed.”
“How’d you know that she’d snuck out?” I asked.
And dammit, was it ever going to get to the point where I didn’t have to worry about Reign?
“Made some friends in the place after dropping her off. Slept with the head of the psych department,” Webber drawled.
That didn’t surprise me.
I rolled my eyes. “Of course she did. But she’s all the way up there in the Dakotas. I bet it’ll take her a while to get all the way down here.”
“She’s been missing a week now,” Webber groaned. “I wasn’t informed at first because they’d been tracking her. Knew exactly where she was because she didn’t try to hide her escape. Once she got to this prepper’s place in Arkansas, however, she was able to move a little faster because she stole an old Army transport truck. Guy didn’t think to say anything about it missing because he’s a little scatterbrained. He thought he left the truck in a field, but he has a lot of fields, so it took him a while to realize that it wasn’t in any of his fields.”
I shook my head. “She sold that truck to another prepper in Abilene. From there, they don’t know where she went. But that’s why the doctor ended up calling me. She felt like Reign was getting closer to me, and wanted to warn me it looked like she was headed home.”