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The little girl giggled and shrieked in happiness, flashing her dimples again. Her twin’s expression was identical.
“Did Carlotta come with you?”
He nodded. “She’s in the girls’ room, trying to clean up the Chernobyl-like disaster of toys they made in three minutes flat. When my kids were young, I wasn’t home a lot, so I missed most of this day-to-day craziness. When I was around, I’d take the boys outside with a ball and chase them to exhaustion. Kimber…” He shook his head. “She always wanted to have fashion shows and paint my nails—at least until the boys teased the girliness out of her. But I never knew how to entertain her, so I can only imagine these two are going to keep Logan on his toes for a couple of decades. Isn’t that right, princesses?” he asked them with a big smile.
Clearly, the colonel loved his granddaughters.
“Hey, see if you can get Macy to eat, would you?” The older man shoved a jar of food in his hands.
One-Mile froze. “Sir, I don’t… I’ve never fed a—”
“Baby? It’s not rocket science. Put food on half the spoon and see if she’ll eat it. Be prepared to wipe her mouth. Dodge if she starts spitting.”
Those instructions weren’t exactly comforting. He stared between the baby and the pureed sweet potatoes in his grip. Oh, fuck. He was going to suck at this.
But surprisingly, he didn’t. Most of the jar, ten minutes, and a messy face later, Macy started to fuss when he tried to feed her another bite.
“She’s done,” Caleb said. “I think they both are. Thanks for the hand.”
“You’re welcome.”
The colonel wiped off their sweet little faces and set them free to roam the house again, then turned to him. “I’m guessing you didn’t come here for a crash course in parenting.”
His mouth twitched. “No, sir.”
“Anything I can help you with?”
As much as One-Mile liked the colonel and respected his opinion, it was doubtful he knew anything about Cutter and Brea’s engagement. “Not unless you can explain a woman.”
“No. God, I hope you weren’t coming to Logan for advice.”
“Information.”
“Ah, well, I can’t give you that, but it took me thirty years and two wives to learn the only skill that’s saved my ass: listening. It sucks, but it’s effective.”
One-Mile sighed. “Yeah, I’d listen if she’d talk to me.”
“Even in her silence, she’s telling you something. You’ve just got to stop talking long enough to hear it.”
With that bit of advice pinging through his brain, he shook the colonel’s hand and headed to the sports bar Zy had suggested. Since he’d arrived a few minutes early, he grabbed a brew and waited.
The place was dark and narrow and decorated with tacky light fixtures emblazoned with beer brands’ logos. A neon sign led patrons to the bathrooms with a bright yellow 2 pee. The place was filled with hipsters of all ages, but way more men than women. TVs lined every wall, playing all kinds of programs—everything from high school football games to tabloid entertainment shows.
One-Mile tuned them all out and ordered a Stella. When the bartender slid it across the scarred countertop, he paid, then took a long pull and started thinking.
Why would Brea suddenly decide to marry a man she claimed to love but wasn’t hot for? And why would she choose the safe option when he was standing right in front of her? Yeah, he wasn’t perfect. And if he had a do-over, he wouldn’t charge into the salon like a fidiot and make the even stupider mistake of letting her crawl under his skin so much that he forgot to ask the most important question about her engagement.
Why?
So what had she said in her silence? She’d admitted she’d been hurt when he’d walked out that awful fucking morning he’d returned from St. Louis, but she hadn’t said yes to Cutter then. Which meant she hadn’t agreed to become the Boy Scout’s fiancée simply out of spite. And One-Mile figured she hadn’t done it merely to make him jealous…though he was. He knew it couldn’t be for the sex. The two of them hadn’t been having it a few weeks back. With Bryant out of town, they couldn’t be having it now, despite the fact they were engaged. Even though she said she loved Cutter—which chapped his ass—he wasn’t convinced she was in love with the guy. If she was, wouldn’t she have agreed to marry the asshole long ago? Yeah, and she would never have fallen into his own bed once, much less again and again.
So Brea had a reason for this sudden engagement he just wasn’t seeing.
Cage had mentioned his brother mopping up the “mess” he had supposedly made. The big cop hadn’t been talking about her reputation, since he’d apparently just ruined that today. So what the hell had Cage meant?
