I wasn’t embarrassed of my town. It was where I came from. It was what had made me me. I’d walked into Walmart in a vintage fur coat I’d found on eBay, and everyone would look at me strangely. No one really ‘got me’. I still had a close-knit group of friends from here. Ones I emailed now and again, liked their photos on social media.

Although I wasn’t ashamed of where I came from, I found myself wondering what Jay thought of it. He had a lot of money. Now, at least. But he did not strike me as someone who’d grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth. Not with the scars that covered his body, the trauma behind his eyes.

He hadn’t spoken as we’d driven through town. Neither had I. I’d been looking out the window, at all the things that hadn’t changed.

Despite the situation, my body relaxed as the car moved down our driveway. The grass was vibrant green, carefully maintained—my father mowed regularly and watered just as religiously. Our driveway was reasonably long, the property I grew up on also rather large, especially considering the size of our house. Dad had made sure the gardens were immaculate, rivaling the bigger, more expensive homes of our neighbors.

Flowers sprung up as the house came in to view. Dad had converted the straight driveway into a circular one in a single weekend. In the middle of the circle was a beautiful arrangement of hydrangeas of all different colors.

The stones leading to the house were ones we’d collected ourselves at the quarry where he ‘knew a guy’. Pretty much everything he’d sourced was because ‘he knew a guy’. My father was well liked and well respected in the community. He was the guy you called for just about anything, and he’d get up in the middle of dinner if someone called needing help with a garden, a burst pipe or because he’d heard the bartender’s wife had come in to work with a black eye.

My father’s gentle hands had planted the rose garden against the white brick of our small, one story house, but they’d also taught lessons to men who beat their wives.

There was a wreath on the front door. Again, a touch from my father. Granted, it was because I had forced him to let me decorate for every single season, and it was something he’d continued after I moved out. Whether it was because he liked the look of it or did it because he missed me, it warmed my heart.

The door opened as we pulled up. My father likely had been watching the driveway, timing the flight arrival and drive from the airport. Even though we hadn’t driven from the airport over an hour away and we’d taken off sooner than I’d planned.

For once, while being in an enclosed space with Jay, all of my attention was not on him. It was on the tall, muscular man with the salt and pepper hair and excellent moustache.

I’d jumped out of the car before it even came to a full stop. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him during these turbulent few months. How much I’d needed the safety of his embrace.

“Dad!” I greeted in a half shout, walking quickly to meet him at the end of the walkway.

“Baby girl,” he boomed in response, holding out his arms.

I dove into his embrace, inhaling the smell of oil and Old Spice that had been the fragrance of my childhood.

I hugged him longer and harder than I’d expected to, but I found myself unable to let go of him, a lump stuck in my throat, tears at the backs of my eyes.

My father cleared his throat in that masculine way that told me he was close to tears too. I reluctantly let him go, but he kept me at arm’s length.

“You get more and more beautiful every time I see you,” he looked me up and down, voice husky. “And that is a no mean feat, since you’re the most beautiful woman to walk the earth.” His fuzzy brows furrowed slightly. “But you’re too skinny.”

My father had worried about my weight ever since I’d gone through puberty. A single father raising a daughter, he’d read every single book about raising girls he could, and he was more than aware of how teenage girls were at risk for eating disorders. He made a constant effort to tell me I was beautiful just the way I was, to project body positivity and not create any kind of weirdness around food. That was another reason for him experimenting with all sorts of gourmet food; he wanted to make mealtimes a positive, exciting event.

I was skinnier than I normally was, though. Because of the state of anxiety I’d been in these past few months, I’d forgotten to eat regularly. Something that had never happened with me. I loved food. Loved trying new things. But my mind was always elsewhere, to say the least. Not to mention all the extra work I’d been taking on to add to my new savings account I was planning on using to help my father.

Tags: Anne Malcom The Klutch Duet Erotic
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