Page 23 of Ugly Duckling (Content Advisory #6)

Seventeen

Sneezes are face farts.

—Sutton to Gunner

SUTTON

Nothing, and I do mean nothing, had gone as planned today.

My cancelation from yesterday had begged and pleaded for me to come today, so I’d taken a three-year-old with me to the funeral home.

Luckily, the elderly client’s daughter had been there to help me.

When I’d said that I wasn’t going to be able to come because of my newest gal pal, she’d volunteered herself to watch Lottie while I got her mom’s nails done.

After that, we’d stopped for a late breakfast because I’d been a negligent babysitter and hadn’t brought Lottie any food.

After that, I’d gotten sucked over to the mall because Creole had begged me for my help finding a new date night dress to wear out this weekend.

I hadn’t worn a damn dress since my wedding, so I wasn’t sure that it made me super qualified to help her find something appropriate, but I went anyway.

Luckily, I had a feeling Gunner wouldn’t take me anywhere where I’d have to wear one.

Unluckily, the skies had opened up from the moment we’d left the mall to now, giving me until right at seven at night to finally get my workout in.

Lottie proved that she was resilient, and right as I set her on her feet to do her thing, she’d gone wild.

I’d brought a soccer ball for her to kick around, as well as a small catcher’s mitt, ball, and glove.

I’d also brought a glove for myself—a glove so dang stiff that it was hard to close the leather with my puny little hands—but was pink with purple flowers and was so beautiful that I wished I played baseball or softball.

I was stretching out while simultaneously catching the ball and rolling it back to Lottie—she was not like her father, and definitely couldn’t catch a ball to save her life.

But boy, could she throw it.

“Wow!” I caught the ball, then promptly dropped it because I couldn’t close the mitt.

Weak.

“Yes!” she cried, picking the ball up and tossing it back at me.

I reached high over my head, but missed it.

Luckily, there was a man who knew how to catch behind me, and he caught it before it could hit the ground behind me and roll.

I looked up and smiled. “Well hello there, Dad.”

“Daddy!” The ear-piercing screech hit a new octave. “Hi!”

“Hi, baby.” Gunner’s smile was so damn wide and pure that it made my heart ache. “Whatcha got there?”

“A gwove!” She slapped it into her hands, then threw it down onto the floor and stomped on it.

Gunner snorted and lifted his girl. “You got a good arm on you, my girl.”

“Stwong.” She flexed her little girl muscles.

“Yes, you are,” he teased. “Are you almost done?”

“Actually, just got started.” I flopped onto my back and crossed my leg over my chest, pulling it out to my side so I could stretch my hip out. “Today has not gone as planned.”

Just as I said those words, I felt the water seeping into my back.

I looked backward to see that in my flop backward, I’d knocked over my water.

I groaned and lifted it back upright, hoping that I hadn’t lost the entire contents.

“I guess I’ll run with you and give you a little competition,” he teased as he placed his girl on the ground. “Baby, can you play by yourself for a bit so we can run?”

“I run!”

“Sure you can,” he offered. “But just make sure you don’t cross in front of us. I don’t want to run you over.”

“Yes, Daddy.” She nodded. “I will.”

I had a feeling that “I will” was more like “I will trip you up, but I’ll look cute doing it.”

“Good deal,” he said. “I stopped to get food, too. Got your favorite. Shrimp.”

“Yum!” Lottie licked her lips comically.

God, she was sure a cute little girl.

“And your hair looks fantastic, darling,” Gunner teased as he pulled a loose strand out of the messy bun that I’d put it in.

For three years old, Lottie had more hair than a full-grown adult.

“Yes!” Lottie pursed her lips and blew a kiss at her dad.

We both had a stunned moment of silence, and then burst out laughing.

“The sass on this one,” I teased as I got up to stretch my hamstrings. “You taught her everything you know, huh?”

“Of course.” He winked, his eyes going from my face to my ass. “Do I need to stretch?”

I shrugged. “I’m not your keeper, Gunner Lewiston.”

“Penn,” he corrected me gently. “I don’t want to be associated to that asshole.”

“That asshole” being his grandfather.

A long time ago, before we were smart enough to comprehend, Gunner once had a mom and a sister.

Gunner’s father had been very intensely entrenched in the gang life.

He’d pulled Gunner’s mother into it, too.

They’d produced two children together, but neither one of them had been able to pull themselves out of the gang life.

In fact, Gunner’s mom had even gone as far as to pull Gunner’s Uncle Parker into it.

The one good thing that we could say that Gunner’s grandfather had done was force Parker to turn his life around.

And he had.

Parker had gotten married to a wonderful woman named Kayla, and they’d had two children—Abram and Elinore.

Where Parker had been able to turn his life around, Parker’s sister, and Gunner’s mom, had not.

Parker’s father had killed Gunner’s mom and sister, and the only one to survive the whole tragic event had been Gunner.

Gunner had been raised by his grandfather for the most part until Gunner was an almost adult.

However, Gunner hadn’t thrived under his care.

It wasn’t until he’d emancipated himself and had relied more on Parker, that he’d really started to be happy.

At least, that was everything that I’d gotten from Kayla over the years as she talked and talked—and talked—about her favorite nephew.

Though, Gunner’s grandfather had the potential to fix all of this just by being a better father to his children. It wasn’t until he’d fucked up his own kids that he’d decided to start over with Gunner.

The only problem was, Gunner didn’t approve of how his grandfather, Ben, had treated his beloved uncle. He also didn’t approve of Ben’s lifestyle—a polygamist household where all wives were not treated the same.

Eventually, he’d just wanted out.

And he’d dropped his last name once he got out.

“Sorry, Gun,” I murmured. “Slip of the tongue.”

He touched the top of my head before saying, “I know. I just don’t want to ever be associated with that bastard ever again.”

“If it makes you feel better, everyone gives him a wide berth every time he’s seen in town.” I paused. “You know that he just had his thirteenth child, right?”

Gunner made a gagging noise. “Parker also told me that his newest ‘wife’ is barely over the age of eighteen.”

That was true, too.

The last I’d checked, Ben was on his seventh wife.

“I don’t know what to say to that,” I admitted.

“Nothing to say.” He shrugged and offered me his hand.

I took it, and he pulled me to my feet with very little effort.

His eyes connected with mine and he kept pulling me until we were pressed chest to knee.

“What are we doing, Gunner?” I asked carefully.

His eyes danced as he said, “We’re gonna race.”

Race we did.

Gunner beat me every single time.

The one time I had a chance was when Lottie darted out in front of Gunner and swung at his legs with her baseball glove. He vaulted her like a hurdle and kept running, still managing to beat me even though his daughter tried to take him out.

By the time we were done, both of us panting on the turf with pieces of black track on our sweating bodies, Gunner said, “Maybe now that we’re done racing, we can go eat the cold food in the truck at my place. After that, we’ll put Lottie to bed, and then you can rub down my sore muscles.”

I turned my head to look at him. “If anyone should be doing a rubdown of sore muscles, it should be you doing that for me. You barely even had to try today.”

“I tried,” he argued as he rolled over until he was hovering over me.

“Daddy, catch!”

I saw the ball heading right toward my face—my nose to be specific—but Gunner proved that his baseball skills were still very sharp because he caught the ball before it could make contact with my nose.

I gasped in a shocked breath. “Your daughter’s trying to make me need a new nose job.”

He tapped me on said nose with the ball before pulling himself to his feet, and bringing me with him.

“Lottie, my little Beanie Weenie, we don’t throw balls at people that aren’t lookin’,” he ordered sternly.

“Yes, Daddy.” Lottie had the grace to look contrite.

I tried to wipe off the bits of rubber off my sweaty body, but it proved pointless.

“Daddy, catch?”

“Don’t throw it at her,” I warned. “She can’t catch for shit.”

Gunner’s eyes flicked to me. “You know this?”

“Look at that little red dot on her forehead,” I said. “I tossed it to her lightly earlier, she bobbled it, and managed to smack herself in the face with it three times before it hit the ground. She did it two more times before I realized that rolling it was going to be our answer.”

“Noted.” He rolled the ball to her, then she tossed him a rocket.

He caught it, looked at me with wide eyes, and said, “Holy shit.”

Despite the flirting from earlier, both of us went to our separate rooms when we finished with dinner.

I shifted restlessly in the bed, my gaze going to the alarm clock that I’d had since I was fifteen, and I groaned.

“Shit,” I muttered darkly.

My bedroom door pushed open, and a sexy, half-clothed man filled the doorway.

“You awake?” he asked.

I scooted to the side and said, “Sure am.”

He walked up to me and dropped onto the bed like a tree.

I bounced so high that my body nearly fell right off the other side.

He caught me and pulled me in tight before saying, “You need a bigger bed.”

“It’s perfectly acceptable for a girl that’s my height and weight. Not for over six-foot behemoths like you.”

He turned over onto his side, and despite the darkness making it impossible to see my face, he said, “Thank you for taking care of my girl today.”

I snuggled deeper into my pillow before replying with, “It was a lot of fun.”

He was silent for a long moment before he said, “Think I could get you to do it again tomorrow?”