“My brother Vince has seen her a few times. Always three sheets to the wind and hanging on the arm of some douchebag in a seedy bar. Vince does the delivery of the high-end bikes, cars and the like that the club garage fixes. He hasn’t seen her in our area for a long time. When he makes deliveries, he pops in for a drink here and there and that’s when he’s seen her. Mostly in Kansas City. Her parents have also seen her a couple times when she’s come to them to ask for money.”
“Has she come to you?”
“No. She’d already put me into twenty thousand dollars’ worth of debt before she bailed on me and her daughter. I don’t think she’d dare come back for fear of my response. It took two years of working myself until my fingers bled and refinancing our house in order to pay it off. Only this last year was I finally in the black.”
“You’ve been through a lot. More than most. And yet you’re still driven, hardworking and a great father,” I responded. “You should be proud of yourself for what you’ve achieved, Ky.”
“Nah. There are a million single parents out there trying to do what’s best for their kid and to give them a good life. I did what any parent would do in the circumstances.”
I shook my head even though he couldn’t see it. “Not true. You rallied. You provided a good life for your daughter. Anyone who meets that little girl can see she’s happy, loved and well taken care of. I hope you know you’re doing an amazing job with her, baby.” I lowered my voice because it felt like a private, special moment. Something we were sharing just between the two of us. Him giving me some of his insecurities, and me showing him they’re unfounded.
“Thanks, honey. Still, I should have told you about Hope.”
“May I ask why you didn’t?”
He groaned. “Honestly, it started off as self-protection. I didn’t want to meet another woman and share my life. I’d just suffered through the last six years of dealing with a woman who destroyed me and the life we built. So at first, I only hung out with women when I was feeling the need for intimacy.”
I chuckled. “Mr. Hit it and Quit it.”
“Truth?” His voice was low and sexy.
“Always, baby.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I did. Not the first year when Roni left us. That year I avoided any romantic or physical connection with the opposite sex and focused solely on my kid, my business and paying off Roni’s debts.”
“Makes sense. I’d be put off men if the same happened to me, too.”
“When Hope was around four, I started to date a little. It didn’t feel right. I still wasn’t ready to share my world. Definitely not my daughter. So if I met a woman I liked and she felt the same, we’d hook up. Did that for the past two years.”
“Then what happened?”
“Haven’t you figured it out? I met you, baby,” he stated rather directly.
I gasped. “You haven’t dated anyone seriously since your ex-wife?”
He laughed heartily and the sound filled my soul with joy. “One woman I had a great time with. Felt there might be a connection and met up with her a second time. Told her I had a child and she made it clear she wanted no part of that type of baggage.”
Instantly, my blood boiled. “What a bitch! Hope is not baggage. She’s awesome! I can’t even...”
“Cool it, honey. It’s fine. She wasn’t the woman for me. After that experience I promised myself that until I was certain a woman was right for me and fit into the life I led, I wasn’t ever going to introduce her to my kid or even talk about her. Hope didn’t deserve a parade of women coming in and out of her life when she’d already been abandoned by her mother.”
“Oh, Kyson...” I sniffed as the tears came back and anger leeched out. “You’re such a good man and father. Putting your girl first in all things. It’s commendable and I hope you realize it because she truly is great.”
“Yeah, she is. Best thing I ever did in my life. Doesn’t change the fact that I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her sooner. I had to leave at eleven those nights we were out because the teenager next door that I have watching Hope has to be home by eleven-fifteen or her mother gets salty with me. I can’t lose her as a babysitting option and honestly, it never felt right telling you about Hope when I had you half-naked or we’d had a hot-and-heavy session.”
I held the phone tighter to my ear so I could hear every nuance of his breathing. “I get it, I really do. I still wish you would have been forthcoming, but I understand why you weren’t.”
“With you, Isa, you’re already more than I could ever hope for. I haven’t felt anything this good in a long time. As the days kept sliding by, I started to worry that I’d lose you once you found out. And even though it’s only been a few dates and a little over a couple weeks, it would have killed me to lose you. I wanted to hook you deep. Keep you as all mine for as long as I could.”
“I wish you were here. If you were, I’d hold you close, kiss you hard, look you in the face and tell you your daughter only adds to your appeal. And you’re pretty damn appealing to start with, Kyson Turner.”
“Damn, now I want to kiss you.”
“I want that, too.”
“Tomorrow we’re going to make up for this lack of kissing,” he demanded.
I chuckled. “You say the time and the place and I’m there, baby.”
“Hope liked you.” He changed the subject and for that I was grateful. Too much sadness for one night. I was ready for the ease that Kyson had brought to my world lately.
“I liked her, too.”
“She talked about how pretty you were the entire way home. Says she’s going to have fire hair when she’s older just like Izzy. Also, she claims she’s going to be a famous baker and work in your bakery so I need to hurry up and finish it up so she can get to work.”
That had me cracking up. “Guess we’ll see how she does tomorrow. Make sure to send me all the details about picking her up.”
“We’ll discuss it in the morning after I drop her off and come to work at the bakery.”
“Oh, that’s right. I’ll see you in the morning.” I played with a lock of my hair. “What’s on for the rest of your night?”
“Wiped, baby. Gonna grab myself a beer, surf the TV for something mind-numbing, take a shower and crash early. You?”
“I’m going to read one of my mother’s letters, then read a few chapters of this romance novel that Jasper found in his apartment.”