That was true.
But still.
“So…you want to go ring shopping with me?”
Reese’s eyes lit up just as Rowen walked into the house.
Her eyes took me in, then her mother, then me again.
“Please, God, tell me that you did not just welcome him into our family.”
Reese’s brows went up. “And what if I did? What’s it to you?”
“What’s it to me?” She blew out a frustrated breath. “It means that there’s one more person that I have to share chocolate cake with!”
***
Luke
I wasn’t surprised to find him in my office.
What I was surprised to find was my wife in there with him, looking at rings on my office computer.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I came to a halt right inside the door.
“Looking at rings for Logan to give to Katy,” she said.
My brows rose.
“Are you asking her, or telling her?” I asked curiously.
“I’m asking you.” Logan stood up and put his hands into his pockets. “Then I’m telling her.”
I forced my grin to stay off my face.
“I just got news,” I said.
He pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “Tasia has turned up. She’s okay, but she is definitely freaked the fuck out. She’s also giving up the fight for her child. She’s ordered her father to stand down, and she’s also turned herself in. As of ten minutes ago, she’s locked up in the city jail. She also has apologized, and asked me to extend that apology to you.”
I blinked.
“What?” he asked, sounding confused.
“She also said that Bruno, Katy’s high school friend, wasn’t the one to kidnap her. Some man she couldn’t identify was,” I continued.
Logan blinked. “That’s…what?” He tilted his head. “I know what I saw.”
“I know,” I agreed. “But she’s adamant about it. And she’s sticking to her guns.”
He shook his head.
“I…okay,” he finally said. “Have you found Bruno?”
I shook my head. “Nowhere. House has been cleared, too. Movers arrived yesterday. Bruno is in the wind.”
“Well…” he said. “Shit.”
“My sentiments exactly,” I agreed. “Now, get the hell out of my office. I have a teleconference with the governor in about twenty minutes, and I have to clean off my desk really quick.”
“Even me?” Reese batted her eyes.
“Even you,” I agreed, bending down to press my lips to hers. “But you don’t actually have to leave. Just move out of my spot. You can clean for me.”
She snorted and pulled away, standing up and then waving at my desk with a sweep of her hands. “Have at it, big bad police chief. I’m going ring shopping with that one so he doesn’t pick out an ugly one.”
I grinned. “You do that, baby. I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Thank you, baby,” she whispered. “That was sweet.”
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Giving him your permission,” she answered.
I shrugged and pulled back, turning so that Logan could see my face.
“I’ll give him permission all day long,” I said. “But if he hurts her…”
Logan nodded once. “You’ll skin me alive.”
I snorted. “Worse than that, kid. Way worse than that.”
With that, Logan and my wife left, leaving me happy and content, despite the fact that I’d just given a man permission to take my daughter away from me.
From the moment she was born, she’d been mine.
She’d been mine to take care of, mine to protect, and mine to love.
Now she would be none of those things.
And that hurt a little more than I ever thought it would.
But, like the grown man I was, I pushed it down and got on with my day.
Only when I was in my bed, with Reese in my arms, did I tell her that I was sad.
She wrapped her arms around me and said, “That’s because you’re a good daddy, Luke Roberts. But good things are on the horizon. Like little grandbabies to spoil.”
The thought of my baby having babies was downright terrifying.
“That can happen way in the future.”
I didn’t know whether that was a hope or a prayer, but either way, I didn’t want it to be too soon.
I was too young to be a grandfather.
I was also too young to be thinking about my baby getting married, but there I was, having it happen.Chapter 24My muscles are sore. Should I be sore because I had to do a cavity search of a dead woman?
-Katy’s secret thoughts
Katy
I was elbow deep in a dead woman’s abdomen when Logan walked in.
I grinned at him.
He frowned.
“What’s that look for?” I asked.
He pulled his eyes from the dead woman’s guts, then focused on me.
“I imagined this going differently,” he said. “I waited at home, food in the oven, and you never came.”
My lips twitched. “I have another hour or two here.”
“I know,” he said. “But I’ve been literally waiting for you to come home for hours now…and I’m getting impatient.”
“Are you going to ask me to formally move in?” I asked, grasping what I wanted and pulling the bulge out.