“As you wish,” I repeated, snapping my belt into place while he did the same.
He shoved his jacket and coat out of the way of the gearshift, and then he did a U-turn and signaled as he exited.
Sheriff Brooks was back in control.
Thirteen
It occurred to me when I was changing my daughter’s dirty diaper that I wasn’t cut out for single parenthood.
Samantha with her big blue eyes and her disapproving whimpers probably agreed.
That was after I’d somehow managed to get a big plop of her shit on my dress shirt before accidentally dropping the dirty diaper outside Gina’s wondrous pail for Sadie to snatch and whip over her head as she ran down the hall.
I didn’t want to think about where her mess might’ve ended up during Sadie’s flight. It was probably dripping from the ceiling.
A fitting epithet for the night, as my still hard cock would attest to.
Last week, I would’ve said I wasn’t cut out to be a father at all. I had enough trouble running herd on the errant ducks in town and the teenagers—and not teenagers—who insisted on using the lookout point as a mobile bedroom.
Was it any wonder I’d succumbed to peer pressure and tried it myself tonight? My biggest regret wasn’t even getting caught, although the shame of that stung like sticking my hand into a hornet’s nest every time I thought of it.
Which was often.
No, my biggest regret was not getting inside Gina before I’d wrecked things. Again. I had a disturbing habit of doing that, and half the time I didn’t even know where I’d gone wrong.
My desire to fuck my best friend had resulted in a complete loss of judgment. I was a man of the law. Blue balls was not fatal. I’d lived with them this long, hadn’t I?
What I’d done was reprehensible.
Never mind that I’d been no better than my no-good AWOL mother—and Sami’s even worse one—by ignoring my baby’s cries in favor of…getting some.
I hadn’t even gotten it. There was a parable somewhere in there, I was sure.
And if that wasn’t enough, the story would probably be shared all over town with everyone’s coffee-and-eggs diner breakfasts before Black Friday shopping trips.
I trusted Christian’s discretion implicitly, but the lookout point was a hotspot in town, and I hadn’t exactly been checking for lookie-loos while I’d had my head buried between Gina’s golden thighs. Once I’d gotten a taste of her sweet pussy, she’d become all I could think about.
Hell, even before that. Long before.
Now all I had was her stolen thongs, her delicious flavor still on my tongue, and a hard dick full of recriminations.
“Your father is a moron,” I told Samantha as I finished cleaning her up with about twenty baby wipes and then used some of the cream I’d gotten to prevent diaper rash. “We’re alone in this house right now because I can’t keep it in my pants.”
At my daughter’s babbling response, I shut my eyes. “You don’t know what’s going on, right? You won’t need therapy because of your daddy and mommy’s porn show in the front seat of the Jeep. Tell me you won’t.”
I swallowed deeply when Sami gave me a kick, either to shut me up or so I’d get a move on and dress her already.
“Tell me I just didn’t call Bee your mommy when that isn’t reality. When it probably never will be, since your daddy is dumb as fuck.”
She didn’t dispute my assessment. She just stuck her fist in her mouth and gnawed away because her clueless father hadn’t given her a new bottle yet.
I braced my hands on the edge of the vintage changing table I’d found at Kinleigh’s Attic. Well, Kinleigh and August’s Attic now. They’d started out as friends, and now they were parents with an adorable baby girl.
August had dealt with his share of angst over the whole situation, but now they were on the other side. A happy family. Just like John and Macy’s family was happy with Dani and their new son, Michael. Blended families could work.
Families, period, could function well. Just because my own had been such a disaster didn’t mean it was impossible. And my dad had done a damn good job solo with Mason and I. It was just the mother part of the equation that had caused problems.
Recurring theme.