Page 51 of Scouting the Single Dad

Layla:

Huh. These are all very reasonable sounding activities.

Layla:

When exactly are we doing this?

Hayes:

Benny has a volleyball game for her butterflies team Tuesday. Today is Saturday, we leave tomorrow. So Monday??? Or tomorrow?

Layla:

Tomorrow? Way too soon.

Hayes:

Monday it is. No bringing up the fart.

Layla:

No promises.

Hayes:

So . . . that means you’re coming?

Layla:

Sure. I’ll come to Arizona.

Chapter 11

Hayes

“Do you see her?” Benny’s on tiptoe, elbow jabbing my ribs like a metronome. “Dad? Do you see her?”

I don’t.

Then I do.

Dark hair down, loose, and a little wild from the plane. Soft T-shirt tucked into high-waisted jeans that hug her hips and do things to my blood pressure. Sneakers. Sweatshirt tied around her waist.

She’s hesitant to scan the crowd at arrivals, then grins when she spots the stupid sign Benny made me hold.

Welcome Home from Prison, Layla!

She steps around a family reunion, and everything inside me first stills—then slams awake. It’s like somebody took jumper cables to a battery I’d quietly resigned as dead.

Shit, she’s pretty. Every time I see her I’m reminded of that fact.

Taller, too, or maybe it’s the confidence in her walk. No winter coat this time; not bundled up the way she’d been in Star Lake, where it was cooler. The masculine, caveman part of me catalogs her body: the curve of her waist, the slope of her throat, the way her eyes find mine and hold.

I clear my throat. “Welcome to Phoenix.”

Her eyes scan our sign. “Prison?”

Benny grins from ear to ear. “It was my idea. For shock value.”