“Except the ring is gone, and you took it.” Rain falls heavier as she crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head. “I’m going to owe so much fucking money to this asshole, and you made that debt even bigger.”
“You don’t owe anything to him. He’s going to agree to that right now.” I press my gun to the side of his head and start barking orders. “Tell her she doesn’t owe you anything for this wedding.”
“That’s not going to happen. That whole wedding debacle was the biggest embarrassment of my life. I had friends from outside the country in attendance. Professional colleagues, my family, everyone. People who’ll be talking about this mess for years. Sure, you took her, but she broke up with me instead of asking to come home. So, either she comes to her senses and we go through with the wedding while everyone is still in town, or she owes me half of everything. It’s as simple as that.”
“I can’t pay you half!” Pepper blurts. “I don’t have anything! I paint freaking walls, Nathan!”
“Should’ve thought about that before you started calling this stupid fuck daddy.”
Charlie growls again, the hair on his neck standing. I’ve never seen him like this. Usually, he’s incredibly docile, friendly with everyone. Fuck, some days I think he’d let an intruder straight into the house if it meant there was a ham bone waiting for him on the kitchen floor.
“And you.” Nathan glances back toward me. “You realize there’s no getting that client list back, right? It’s mine. You were stupid enough to let me take it, so you deserve what happened to you.”
“That’s right, you did take it. Nice you’re finally admitting it.” I hold up my cell phone, the conversation we’re having recording the whole time. “Anything else you’d like to say?”
“Fuck you, dude.” Nathan pouts and shuffles back toward his Tesla, though I don’t think he’s getting far. “I’m calling my lawyers. You can’t record me without my knowledge and use it however you’d like.”
I shake my head as he closes himself into the car like the little bitch boy he is.
“Baby girl,” I land my hand on her back, rain trickling down her face, “I didnottake that ring. I promise you on Grandma’s biscuits. I don’t know where it is, but we’ll find it.”
She wipes a tear from her eyes and stares up at me as Charlie scrubs against her leg. “What if Grandma’s biscuits aren’t a real thing either? What if everything you said is a lie? I mean, Nathan’s lied about everything. I didn’t know he stole your client list. What else did he do?”
I shrug and wipe the rain from her forehead, though it’s a pointless effort. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“I need to know,” she says, twisting her sopping hair to the side as thunder rolls overhead.
I draw in a deep breath and exhale slowly. “He stole our client list and used everything I taught him while I was his mentor to train that app he built. He recorded me, took pictures, then fed it all into that system. My buddies and I lost out on more than half our business afterward. We couldn’t compete with a service app that directed the work faster than we could even answer the phone.” I take a big sigh as I brush my hand down my face. “I thought that’s what mattered, and I was hell bent on doing anything to settle the score. That first conversation we had weeks ago, I could see you were special and it killed me to think Nathan had that going for him too. You were gorgeous, funny, and you saw things differently. You had this way about you that was soft and kind.”
A bolt of lightning flashes over the lake, the damp scent of earth surrounding us. “But you were young and way out of my league, so I wrote you off and considered it an opportunity to take from Nathan what was owed to me.” I laugh to myself as I pull her tiny frame closer. “But the second I lifted you up and put you in my truck, I knew I wouldn’t be able to let you go everagain. It only got worse when you told me what he’d done to you, when you started calling me Daddy, and,” I ball my fist tight and lean into her forehead for a kiss, “I need you in my life, baby girl.”
She wipes away another tear, and for a long moment says nothing at all. Rain pours, thunder rolls, and lightning strikes, but there’s nothing coming from my everything.
I’m considering continuing on with my own ramblings to fill the space when she finally opens her mouth to speak.
“The last twenty-four hours have been the best of my life. It was like we were in a bubble and no one else could take it from us, but this is real life, and real life is complicated and hard. No matter what I feel for you, and no matter what little game we’re playing in there, I have to think about my future. I can’t get wrapped up so deeply in another man that I lose myself again.”
I stroke her cheek with my thumb. “Daddy won’t let you lose yourself, baby girl. If you want to grow your painting business, we grow the painting business. If you want Sunday supper and a greenhouse to spend the morning in, we’ll have Sunday supper and spend every morning in the greenhouse. Hell, you want me to take out a loan, buy Moo’s and reopen the place for Sunday ice cream, I’ll do that too, but you belong to me. You’re my sweet, delicate, little baby girl.”
She stares down at the ground for a long moment. Long enough that police sirens interrupt our conversation, and I come to realize I should’ve shot the asshole when I had the chance.
Chapter Eleven
Pepper
In another life, I’d be at Rhett’s farmhouse, and we’d spend the day in the fields, feeding animals, cleaning stalls, and fixing the fence line for the thousandth time. We’d break for lunch, he’d bend me over in the barn, and we’d fuck like wild heathens unable to control the feelings taking over us. In the evening, when the sun is going down, I’d bet we’d sit out on the front porch together, our bellies full while we talk about the day and the next to come. Maybe we’d even look up at the stars, and he’d tell me stories about the constellations while we planned out Sunday supper.
If someone asked me right now, that would be the perfect life. Not a big, fancy ring, not an over-the-top wedding, and not a dress that was made by a celebrity designer. Nope, a pair of jeans, a farmhouse, and a big, inked-up man demanding I call him daddy.
“Ma’am,” Officer Brooks stands tall before me, rain bouncing off the wide brim of his hat, “are you okay? I lost you there for a second.”
I drag in a deep breath and nod slowly. “Rhett didn’t take me from the wedding. I left on my own.”
“But we have multiple eyewitnesses saying he carried you out kicking and screaming, and your fiancé says—”
“I left on my own,” I repeat, swallowing a lump in my throat, “and Nathan’s not my fiancé.”
Officer Brooks widens his gaze and glances toward Nathan, who’s sitting in the Tesla, avoiding the rain.
