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“You are a such sweet man, Fletcher Tyler. It’s one reason we keep you around.”
The girl in handcuffs snorted a little. He heard her whispered, “Yeah, right,”loud and clear.
Well, she was definitelynoDusty.
This woman was pure trouble. No doubt about it. He shot her a glare.
She shot him a smile that could rock a man back a mile. He was immune, though. Women like her—all they did was cause a man trouble. He’d learned that a long time ago.
It wasn’t a mistake he was going to make again.
“Truckboy, you just really need to get over yourself, you know. Otherwise, no sane woman will ever have you. Well, someday. I strongly suspect you need to grow up first, though. Before you becomeheromaterial like that red-hot, chili-pepper-hot brother of yours anyway.”
He heard Reese and Kaece snicker beside him. Even Sage had a smile on her gorgeous face. But that woman smirked at him. Challenged him eye to eye, likehewas the one at fault for her stealing his damned truck.
It was the smirk that did it. The look in those green eyes just like Dusty’s. It just really pissed him off. “What would you know about it? Nothingsaneor evenreal womanabout you at all. Are you even full-grown yet? If you were a fish, we’d just have to throw you right back. If we caught you at all, the worms would even be laughing, seeing you, little bitty fish.”
She blanched a little. He regretted what he’d said—the instant Sage said his name chidingly.
“Dude. Go soak your head in a snow bank or get eaten by a Chupacabra or something useful. Maybe be food for the moth man of Masterson County or something. Do the world a real favor.” She snarled it at him, little lip up and everything. Fletcher snorted.
No. She was definitely noDusty,that was for sure. Fletcher just glared as Sage turned the girl away.
71
He had imaginedthis day for twenty-three years. Arthur stared into his mother’s eyes and tried to fight the tears in his own. His mother was right there. He had missed her so damned much. She’d gotten older. It hurt him to see the pain in her faded eyes.
Painhehad caused.
He hadn’t always appreciated Masterson County, the inn, or the diner. Or even the family that he could say now that he definitely had always loved.
He’d been an arrogant asshole twenty-three years ago. Losing what—who—had mattered most had shoved that down his throat every single day. Had he not been so damned arrogant, the woman he loved would have never been put through the hell she had. Wouldn’t have become the shell of herself that she had.
She should have left him years ago. Taken Dylan and the rest of the girls when they’d come along, and just left him. Started a better life somewhere else. Found another man, a better man, to give her a better life.
But she had stayed with him. At first he had thought it was because of Dylan. His little Dylan had been premature, and so tiny. So needy. But they had gotten through.
The twins had come a little over a year later—definitely unplanned. Dorothy, two years after.
Their sweet little Dahlia had needed so much extra help those first ten years. Maybe his wife had stayed with him for the younger girls at first. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d left him.
Arthur had never fully known why she’d stayed. He’d always been afraid to ask. He’d lost his four elder daughters, and the rest of his family. He had been terrified to lose the woman he adored and the four daughters they’d been gifted after the dumbest mistake of his life.
He had cost her their four older daughters. He had never forgiven himself for that. Never would. What his wife had lost because of him. He had lost them, too.
It was a pain he had felt every single day. His baby girls. His world.
The hardest thing he had ever done was leave them on his parents’ porch steps and drive away. Just drive away, like they hadn’t mattered.
They had mattered more than they could ever know.
Now, though, his girls were all together. All of them. For the first time. Arthur just wanted to stare at them, to watch them.
To see the beautiful, wonderful women they had all eight become.
He looked at the sheriff of this place. “I’ll tell you everything I know. But I want my daughter uncuffed. Let her go.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” The sheriff sent him a mild look. “She seems to cause trouble.”
