Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 60933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
“Chance did what he thought he should do. He knew bringing you into the situation wouldn’t help anything. That woman would say the wrong thing to you and I’d have had to shut her up. It would have gotten ugly.”
Willa let out a small laugh as she sighed. “Maybe, but he needed me. My brother needed me and I did nothng.”
“First of all, there’s no ‘maybe’ to it. If she’d have lashed out at you with her nasty mouth, I’d have shut it for her. No one talks to you that way. I don’t give a fuck who they are. And second, you love your brother and he knows that. He also understands why you are the way you are about your mother.”
Willa tilted her head back to look up at me. “You realize you can’t protect me from the world.”
I scowled. “The fuck I can’t!” I replied, annoyed. Because yes, I could, and I was going to spend the rest of our lives doing just that.
She smiled then. “I love you. You’re crazy, but I love you.”
Hearing her say those words while she gazed up at me with eyes that reflected how she felt made my world right. It warmed me and reminded me how damn lucky I was.
“I hear crazy love is the best kind,” I replied.
She nodded. “Definitely.”
CHAPTER THREE
WILLA
“There’s something else,” I told Gunner as we walked back toward the house with the treats Nonna had sent with me.
“What?” he asked, stopping to look down at me.
“Chance is coming today. He should be at Nonna’s by five. He’s… he’s bringing Bella.” That was what I knew was making me emotional. Every time I thought about seeing the sister I had never met and had only seen pictures of, it did something to my chest. I wanted to see her, but after all these years it was also terrifying. Then there was the guilt that had set in for not knowing she was being treated the same way I had been by our mother.
“I’m going with you,” Gunner said.
I nodded. “Yes, I want you to,” I assured him. He had looked ready to argue with me.
He relaxed a little then. “You’re scared.”
“Yeah, I am,” I admitted. “And regretful, angry at myself.”
“Why?”
I shook my head and then shrugged. I had explained all this to him. Just because he didn’t agree did not make me feel it any less. He shifted the food in his hands to one arm and took my chin between his two fingers.
“Bella is not your mother. She’s a little girl. One who has heard nothing but good things about you from Chance. She’ll love you, Willa. Don’t let the shit your mother has put in your head mess with you.”
I felt my eyes well up with tears. How was it Gunner could put what I was feeling it into words for me even when I couldn’t.
“You think?” I asked him, my voice raspy with emotion. Would she blame me for not being there? How could he be sure she wouldn’t?
“I fucking know,” he said, leaning so that his face was only inches from mine. “You’re so damn easy to love.”
I smiled then. “Says my boyfriend.”
He smirked. “Says the man who has loved you since he was a kid.”
“Which means you’re a little biased,” I replied.
“No, baby. I don’t love easy. You know that.”
I nodded. He was definitely a hard one to crack. His life had made him difficult to get close to. He protected himself at all costs. Somehow I was the exception.
“Come on, they’re waiting on us, and I know you want to eat whatever Tallulah’s mother has sent and some of this pie,” I told him.
He studied me a moment. “You sure you’re up to talking to anyone? And Tallulah is wanting you to go shoe shopping with her.”
I thought about it for a moment. My head wasn’t in the place to shop right now. I needed to be near Gunner. He made things easier to handle and accept.
“As long as I’m with you, I’ll be fine.”
“Are you saying I gotta shop for shoes?”
I laughed at the horror on his face. “No. I mean I can go inside and visit. I just don’t want to go shopping. I want to be near you today.”
A smile slowly spread across his face. It was territorial in a way. Gunner liked that I wanted him. He had very little to none of that from his family growing up. I filled a large gaping hole inside of him, and I knew it. That’s why when he went all possessive of me, I handled it fine. I understood its source.
We walked back inside, and Tallulah stepped out of Nash’s arms, breaking their kiss as if she had been caught doing something naughty. It was good to see them back together. When they had been broken up, it had felt like something was missing. Nash had been lost without her too.