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Brenna purred and leaned into me, letting me take the weight of her lush curves pressed against me. “You’re sweet.”
“And you taste even sweeter.”
“Yeah?” She turned in my arms and pulled me closer. “Wanna bet?”
I nodded and a second later, my lips crashed over hers and then everything was perfect in the world. Just perfect as our lips collided and our tongues danced together, her fingers tangled in my hair as if trying to get closer to me. My hands roamed up and down the length of her hips and her waist, stopping to grip her ass for just a moment. I pressed my hips against hers and smiled at the way she gasped against my lips.
The sound of a throat clearing made us both freeze and then laugh before we separated. “Guess we got a little carried away,” she said and looked at the person who’d entered the kitchen. “Sorry about that. You’re new, are you a friend of Shannon’s from California?”
The woman was petite with dark hair and even darker eyes, but the jeans and hoodie she wore made her look like a teenager. So did the scowl she wore.
“Who’s Shannon?”
Her words, tinged with anger, sent my defenses up and I took a step between her and Brenna. “Can I help you?”
The woman looked down at her phone and then back up at me. “You’re Grant Lucky Lopez?”
I nodded, feeling even more confused now. “Yeah, that’s me. What do you need?”
“What do I…?” She cut off her own words and shook her head. “I’ve been trying to find you, to reach you for a while.”
Suddenly it all made sense. “You’re the one who’s been calling and hanging up?” I snorted. “Doesn’t seem like you were trying all that hard. What is it that you want from me?”
“Yeah well, this isn’t the kind of news you deliver over the phone, especially since it took me two years to track you down.” She shook her head, annoyed and pissed off. “This,” she put her hand on the shoulder of a small girl with big brown eyes and dark brown hair, “is your daughter. Her name is Mariana.”
I stared down at the little girl with an all too familiar dimple in her left cheek, her amber brown eyes stared up at me, filled with apprehension and sadness. “This can’t be my child since I don’t know you. Never met you.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Mariana isn’t my daughter, she’s my goddaughter. Her mother was Alyssa Morgan. From Nashville.”
Nashville. That was all I needed to hear to remember a blond with big brown eyes mixed with amber. We had a fun-filled week in music city about…shit, eight years ago. “Oh.”
“Alyssa died two and a half years ago. Cancer. I’m her best friend, and I’ve been taking care of Mariana since she passed.”
“Dead? She was so young.” So vibrant.
“Yeah, it turns out cancer doesn’t give a damn about any of that.” She angrily swiped away a few tears and walked Mariana towards me. “Mariana needs a family, she needs her father, and since we’ve finally found you, she’s yours now.”
Mine. “Wait, what? I don’t know anything about taking care of a little girl.”
“Yeah well, neither did Alyssa and neither did I. We managed, and if you can manage in a war zone, you can manage a little girl.” She smiled down at Mariana and then back at me. “Is there somewhere you and I can talk? Privately?”
Brenna squatted down to look at the sad little girl with a wide grin. “I can take Mariana outside if you’d like. There’s barbecue and soda pop and a whole table filled with desserts.” Her blue gaze darted between me and the angry woman for approval.
“It’s all right,” she finally said. “Go on, Mariana.”
Brenna held out her hand patiently until the little girl took it, and guided her out of the kitchen and into the backyard. “Chocolate or sprinkles on your ice cream?”
“She’s good with her. That should make this easy for you.”
“Oh, we’re not a couple,” I insisted. “She’s a friend.”
“Right.” She shrugged off a backpack and dropped it on the counter, rifling through it until she produced a folder packed with documents. “Legal documents, including Mariana’s birth certificate which lists you as the father.”
“That doesn’t mean…never mind.” I wasn’t a jerk, and I remembered that Alyssa wasn’t all that experienced in the world of casual sex. Besides all that, Mariana could be me or either of my brothers when we were kids. “I’m not ready for a child.”
“Neither was Alyssa. You think single and abandoned was how she envisioned becoming a mother?”
“I didn’t abandon her, I didn’t know about the child.”
“And you never called her again, did you?”
I didn’t. “She knew my stay in Nashville was temporary. I spent the ensuing three years on missions, but if she’d left a message it would have gotten to me, so don’t lay your blame at my feet.” I would take responsibility for a lot of things, but not for something I knew nothing about.
