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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.
Kacy cranes her neck forward and eyes the red and yellow neon Grady’s sign plastered to the side of the building. “Family owned?”
I nod, half smiling, unsure if family-owned is a good thing. It wasn’t for my mom. Having a bar with free booze, she drank herself out of a marriage and her life in here. And it wasn’t much better for my wife. She hated everything small town, including my family name.
The girls are eager to get out, so I open the door, both of them practically barreling over the seat and out my door. “Careful, there might—” I don’t finish before Kacy reaches for the door handle, and the second she sets one foot out, she falls flat on her ass. “Shit.”
The girls abandon us and run inside the bar, careless to anything around them.
Quickly rushing around the front of my truck, I slip on the ice and catch myself on my mirror. “Are you okay?”
She’s sitting up. Her hands are covering her face, and I think she’s crying until she drops them to her lap, laughing. She draws in a breath, gasping as the harsh cold probably freezes her damn lungs. “Holy hell, I think I broke my ass.”
“Well, I got a cure for that.” Reaching down, I offer my hand, smiling, waiting to see if she’s going to take it.
Carefully, she places her hand in mine. It’s warm, a vast difference from the air around us. Did I mention she’s still wearing my jacket? She is, and the wind chill makes it cold enough my nipples are practically cutting a hole through my shirt.
As cute as she looks sitting in the snow, eyes glowing and laughter seeping through her, I’m freezing my ass off. I lift her up, and when I do, she’s standing inches from me. All I’d have to do is step forward, and she’d be backed against the side of my truck. I could kiss her, show her what Texas boys are like, but I don’t. Something stops me.
A snowball to my back.
Ice bursts against my back, a sting on impact and showering the ground beneath me in crystalline fragments. Scowling, I turn my head to notice Jace standing on top of the plowed snow, grinning. “It’s cold, yeah?” he yells, arms in the air.
I shoot him a glare, my breath rising in white puffs. “Fuck off.”
That’s when I feel a touch on my stomach, low, just above my waistband, and the words “I could use a drink” are breathed in my ear.
Unprepared for her touch and the effect it’d have on me, my breath catches. My eyes lock on hers, and I fight the urge again to slam her against the truck and kiss the fuck out of her. Or more. She steps to the side, tipping her head toward the building. “You comin’?”
Jace jumps down from the mountain of snow he’s perched on, white flakes in his hair. “He wishes.”
Kacy snorts, carefully walking through the snow, her arms out wide as if she’s going to fly away any second. “Or maybe I do.”
“We’ll see about that.” Jace wraps his arm around Kacy’s shoulder and guides her inside the bar. “You ever been to Texas before, honey?”
Anger pulses through me. I want to rip his arm off her because I’ve yet to hold her like that.
“Nope,” Kacy tells him, working through the last few feet of the snow before they step onto the stone underneath the awning in front of the bar. “First time.”
Jace waggles his dark eyebrows at her. “Well, let’s see if you ever go back to California after this.”