He recovers and holds her tighter. The girls, thinking it’s playtime, run to Lillian’s rescue and plant themselves on each one of his legs.
Kacy stands from the table, and we’re closer than I expect or want. She moves, reaching for her jacket draped over the back of a chair. The movement sends a waft of her sweet scent my way. She smells like an expensive department store I can’t place. Bath and Body Works? No. Sluttier. Not that Kacy’s a slut, that I know of, and I actually wouldn’t mind if she was, but the store. The one that sells panties, what’s the name?
See? I haven’t moved on from panties, but this time it’s for a different reason.
Victoria Secrets… that’s it! All that to say that she smells like sex, and I haven’t been laid in so long that my dick is extremely disappointed in my life choices. He wanted to break up with my hand a long time ago, but sadly, I’m still in that committed relationship.
“Daddy!” Camdyn whines, holding onto Kacy’s hand. “She has to stay with us. Please?”
I glance down at my daughter, her beanie cap covering her eyes.
“Are you sure?” Kacy asks again, staring up at me with a sudden serious expression. “I’m more than willing to stay at a hotel, or Lillian offered to let me stay with her too.”
My eyes snap to Lillian, who’s out of the headlock and looking flustered. I glare at her. “It’s fine. We don’t mind having you stay with us.” I shoot one more glare at Lillian. How dare she offer to let her stay. I glance back at Kacy. “It shouldn’t take too long before we get this fixed.”
She doesn’t seem convinced. “At least let me pay for the damage to the building.” She hands me her credit card.
I look down at the credit card. Kacy M. Conner. With a sigh, I drop my hand, refusing to take it. “We’ll figure it out.” I wink, because I’m an idiot. “In the meantime, are you hungry?”
“We are!” the girls yell.
Kacy’s lips quirk, and she tucks the hair falling into her face behind her ear. “I actually am. All I’ve had is fruit snacks Sev shared with me.”
Sev slaps her hand to my thigh. “I’m hungry.”
“There’s a bar up the road,” I tell Kacy, grabbing Sev’s hand so she doesn’t punch my nut sac again. You ignore the first punch, and she always goes for the jewels. “I take the girls there on Friday nights.”
Kacy glances out the office windows to see it’s still snowing. “Can we get there in this weather?”
Jace and I laugh as I haul Sev into my arms. “That’s what trucks are for.”
I could give her a ride into town. Let her stay at a hotel, but then how would I get to know her? Exactly, I couldn’t. So I take her out to the bar with my kids.
What’s the worst that could happen?
Nope. Should’ve stopped at one.
BARRON
“Is it always this cold here?”
Reaching forward, I start the truck and crank the heater. “In the winter.”
“And the summa’s hot as the devil’s balls,” Camdyn tells her, because yeah, cowboy lifestyle we live here, and my kids hear it all.
“Camdyn,” I growl, glaring at her.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, flopping back into her booster seat and buckling herself in.
That’s when I notice Kacy beside me. She’s darting her eyes around my truck, shivering to the point she’s shaking. “Do you have seat heaters? My ass cheeks are numb.” And then she slaps her hand over her mouth. “Shit… shoot. I meant shoot.” The girls start giggling. Kacy’s eyes snap to mine. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to being around kids.”
Part of me wants to know who she’s been around. What life did she have before she rammed her car into the side of my shop? Speaking of ramming…. Smiling, I shrug. “No seat heaters, sorry.” Without thinking, I peel my jacket off and hand it to her. “Here.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
But do you notice she doesn’t hand it back to me? She wants me. We exchange a look, one that screams “take me now.” Too bad my kids are in the back seat because I might. And the expression on her face probably isn’t a “take me now” kinda face, but in my very much sex-deprived state, I think it is.
With a soft smile, Kacy stares at the snow. “Wow, look at it coming down.”
“I wanna eat it,” Sev tells us, too loud in my ear as she rips my hat from my head and throws it on the floor.
I shove her back carefully. “Get in your seat.”
“I not wanna,” she whines, using the tops of the bench seat in the front of my truck as a balancing device for her jumping.
“Sevyn Rae,” I warn, twisting around to look at her. “If you want to eat, you’ll sit your monster ass down in that seat and buckle up.”
She puts her tiny face right in front of mine, her eyes glowing in the dim lights. “I’m hungry,” she grumbles in her very distinct monster voice.
I crack a smile and growl back, “Sit. Down.”
When I turn around, I notice Kacy watching us with a huge grin. “They’re so cute,” she says, laughter on her hips.
“Uh-huh.”
“Where’s this bar?”
Adjusting the heat again, it blasts a fresh warm breeze through the frigid air in the truck. “Up the road about five miles.”
Looking over my shoulder, I grab hold of the shifter and make sure the girls are buckled in. The headlights of Jace’s Jeep dance on their smiling faces. Of course they’re happy. We’re going to their favorite place outside the barn.
When I turn back around, I sneak another stolen glance at Kacy. The way she’s watching me, the not-so-innocent desire in her eyes, this girl, she’s trouble. Trouble I desperately want to be in.
Clearing my throat, I force a smile. “Ready?”
She nods, returning the smile.
Fuck. The way that smile hits me, it’s as if someone punched my chest. I thought I was only soft for girls who call me daddy. And not in the way you’d think. Don’t be gross. This isn’t me thinking I need to control this drifter sitting next to me. It’s me being a complete pushover for my kids.
But this girl turns out, my dick is trying real hard to cheat on me, and my heart is jumping ship too.
Traitors. They don’t even know her.
“Daddy?” Camdyn draws me from my thoughts. “Can we ride Lulu tomorrow?”
My windshield wipers clear the thick layer of powdery snow that looks something like confetti being thrown at us. “I don’t think she’s going to be up for riding in this weather.”
Camdyn pays me no mind, as usual, and continues to babble things about the ranch and horse facts she can ramble off a million miles an hour. Can’t remember to flush the toilet but recall every horse breed… yep. Has that down.
“Yous hurtin’ my ears,” Sev groans, annoyed by Camdyn’s horse facts.
“Then stop ya listenin’,” Camdyn snaps back. “I’m not talkin’ to you.”
Before an argument can break out, I thankfully pull into the parking lot of Tilly’s next to Jace. He’s already heading inside with Lillian and Rhett.