Free To Forgive & Hold Safe (The Broken Men Chronicles Book 4) by Carey Decevito

look off her face and she cuddled into him.
    My eyes found themselves on Hannah who was watching her parents.  She must have felt my gaze because hers met mine and I couldn’t help but grin.

Chapter 20
    “So, you finally agreed to a hot date for tonight, huh?” Hannah asked after her parents had left.  Thanks to her bluntness, my current sip of coffee nearly went down the wrong hole.
    Sputtering, I took the tissue Hannah handed me and dabbed at my mouth.  “If you call dinner with my folks a hot date, then yeah.” I chuckled.
    I told her about how I had gone to see them and let them in on my life earlier in the week.
    “I didn’t realize how much I was hurting them or how much I missed them. I’m hoping that we can get back to how things were before.  It wasn’t just the journals, but more what your mom told me while you were asleep.  She reminds me so much of my mom, it’s uncanny.”
    Hannah smiled.  “You seem to have made quite an impression on them.  Tell me about your parents?”
    A conversation detailing my folks and childhood led to the discovery that we had grown up with similar backgrounds.
    “Do they know about me?”
    “About the accident, yeah.”
    Next, Hannah asked about Candace’s journals, or their lack of presence specifically, and I shrugged my shoulders.  “I guess I haven’t felt the need to bring them along.”  I wasn’t quite ready to tell Hannah that I would rather enjoy her company more than ruin a good mood with stories of the past that continued to paint my marriage in a darker shade.
    “Um…”
    “What is it?” I asked, noticing Hannah’s blush.  The look had my heart thumping wildly.
    “I need help with something.”
    “Anything.”
    “I kind of have to go to the little girl’s room.”  She bit her lip.  “Never mind. I’ll call the nurse to-”
    “No,” I said a little too breathless. “I was just…distracted.”
    Her brows furrowed.  “Distracted?”
    I didn’t want her knowing that I had been taken with the way her skin flushed with her embarrassment.  “Come on.” I extended my hand to her, changing the subject.  “Let’s get you there before the nurses slap a pair of Depends on you.”
    She harrumphed.  “Oh, you’re funny!”
    “I can be.”  I smirked down at her, while she grabbed my forearms to get to her feet.
    At her full height, she was a head shorter than my six foot two stature.  I made sure she was stable and swiveled so that I could wrap an arm around her waist as she wrapped hers around my neck.
    I escorted her to the bathroom.  “Are you sure you’ll be okay in here?” I asked when we stopped just inside.
    “I’ll let you know if I need help with my underwear in a sec.” My jaw dropped.  “I’m kidding!”  She gave me a once over and bit her bottom lip.  The look bordered on seductive.  “Well…”  My eyes widened.  “Still kidding!  Well, kind of.”  She winked and giggled.
    “You, my friend, are…” I let my words hang.
    “Funny?” I shook my head indicating the negative.  “Gorgeous?”  I laughed and reached for the bathroom’s doorknob to shut the door and give her the privacy she needed.  “Smart, attentive, special…?”
    “Crazy!” I said through the door, laughing loudly at her antics.  “But I like you that way.  Let me think on those others.”
    She snorted.  “Wiseass!”
    “I heard that!”
    “You better not be listening to me tinkle, mister.”
    “Or what?” I was growing to love this back and forth banter of ours.
    She took a beat too long to answer, which I took it to mean that I had stumped her.  “I don’t know yet.” Another boisterous laugh came barreling out of me.  “But I’ll come up with something.”
     
    “Did you fall in or what?  You’ve been in there for a while,” I said after I hadn’t heard anything from her in five minutes.  “Hannah?”
    I knocked on the door and when she didn’t answer, I went to open it. The thing flew