Who's the Daddy (Crescent Cove 3)

Not yours.

Seth stood on the back stoop, but he didn’t say a word as I passed. His eyes averted to the floor.

Blindly, I swung the door open and headed through the house, then out the front door and down the stairs to the sidewalk.

Return the car. Go home.

Go home where you should have been this whole fucking time.

I didn’t even remember the ride home, or backing into the bay at J&T’s. It was all a haze. Hell, I didn’t even know if the car had made the damn squeak that my customer had complained about.

The only thought in my fucking brain was Kelsey.

I was tangled up over a woman again, though Kelsey sometimes seemed more like a sweet younger girl in so many ways.

I’d fucked the holy hell out of her twice. But someone else had too.

And I didn’t even know why that pissed me off so much. I wasn’t that guy. Judgmental like the people in this goddamn town? Nope. That wasn’t me. And yet, my fingers were welded to the steering wheel and I was still staring at the wall of tools sightlessly.

I pounded the dash and got out. Anger sprang out of my pores like noxious gas. I needed to get rid of this before picking up my kid.

How?

Pound it out into Kelsey.

No.

No, that definitely wasn’t happening. Why I was in trouble in the first place. My dick didn’t know how to stay in my pants when I was near her. Even now, the thought of her long legs wrapped around me had me half hard.

And the baby…

The anger swelled in my head and chest. I grabbed the long crowbar and stalked to the back door of the garage and out into the back loading area where stacks of tires waited for recycling.

I swung at the largest stack of truck tires. The satisfying bounce back emptied the noise out of my head. I slammed into the stack until the reverberations in my biceps and triceps left me tingling and numb. My hand burned and my wrist sang with each blow. Sweat coated my shoulders and arms.

Finally, my hand gave way to the punishment and the crowbar clattered to the blacktop. I dropped to my knees and growled through heaving breaths until the spots dancing in my vision cleared.

The golden setting sun off the water speared down the alleyway chased by shadows and the cloying scent of burnt rubber and oil. A steadying scent. My life was connected to this garage.

Once upon a time, I’d wanted to own my own garage and pit crew, but now I liked being able to walk away each night. Sure, I had overtime coming out my ass lately, but it was because I asked for it. Because it helped me catch up when the cascade of shit came down on me from the fixer upper I’d bought when Wes was born.

Wes, who had been my entire world for the last seven years. Even beyond Katherine and her endless unhappiness, there had always been one good thing in my life.

And maybe part of me wanted more.

You could have more.

I shut my eyes against the thought and forced myself to stand. I went back inside and washed up at the large basin on the far wall of the garage. I checked my phone, swiping away the messages from Kelsey.

I couldn’t go back there right now. The wild anger was too close to the fringes of my brain. Instead, I texted my mom to let her know I was on my way.

Dinner with my kid. That was what I needed to focus on, not Kelsey Ford and her huge brown eyes.

The horror in her expression when she’d shouted that the baby might not be mine was forever burned on my retinas. Horror that she had to have a man like me in her life forever? Or horror that it might not be mine?

I didn’t know.

Yeah, I didn’t have it in me for questions like that right now.