“Does he have blocks at his house?”
“I don’t think so, sweetie.” I doubted Alex was keeping a bunch of toys sitting around for Kadie. He’d barely been around kids from what I could tell.
“But I want blocks.”
I spared a glance at the rearview mirror. Kadie was in full pout with her bottom lip out. I tried not to laugh, figuring it’d only encourage the behavior. But still, it was funny-looking as hell.
“Okay, sweetie. I’ll try and remember to ask when we get there, but keep in mind, he just moved into this new place, so he probably doesn’t have any toys. The people who lived there before didn’t have many kids visiting them, and Alex isn’t used to being around kids.”
“Why?”
“He just … isn’t. He didn’t see a lot where he lived before.”
“Where was that?”
“Texas.”
“No kids in Texas?”
I sighed. Talking to a young kid could be exhausting. “I’m just saying he might not have blocks.”
“Okay. But he’s still nice.”
I thought that over. Kadie liked Alex. That should be a good thing, I told myself. After all, he was her father, even if I hadn’t told her that yet. I wasn’t sure why I was waiting. It wasn’t like she had some complicated ideas about who parents were. She was still young to ask those questions or notice much in the way of differences between her family situation and other people’s.
Maybe I wanted to be sure about Alex. I couldn’t really trust him yet, even though we’d both done our parts to screw up the situation after I’d gotten pregnant. That didn’t change the truth that he wasn’t exactly the boy I remembered from high school or even the man I remembered from the reunion.
The question of who he was now still needed to be answered. I knew he was a man who had been hurt and was still suffering. I understood that and wished him well, but I also knew I had to put my daughter’s happiness and safety first.
I sighed. No matter how much those muscles, blond hair, and tattoos could short-circuit my brain and send a jolt to my center, I tried to focus on the fact that he’d come to Livingston because he was messed up and was trying to get his life on track.
That didn’t fill me with confidence about the kind of father he might make. I had to be careful, for both my sake and my daughter’s. Kadie was young enough to not understand many things, but she was also young enough to care too easily and get hurt by the false and easy promises of adults.
I spotted the green road sign that marked the county road leading to Carl’s land. I turned to hit the road, which though paved, was not in the best condition. Unfortunately, there was no other way to get to Carl’s land.
I shook my head, realizing I needed to stop thinking about the land that way. Carl had land out this way, but now so did Alex. Whatever was happening between us, no one could say he wasn’t putting down roots. That, at least, was some proof he wasn’t going to run back to Texas the first chance he got.
If he was only interested in getting into my pants, he was doing it in the most expensive way possible.
So why did the whole situation make me so nervous? My heart was racing like Martin Truex, Jr.
I didn’t know if maybe it was because I’d gone from hating Alex’s guts to having sex with him pretty quickly. Though I knew the situation behind why he’d ditched me was complicated, it still didn’t sit right with me.
But damn it, it’d been three days since we’d made love, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even there, while I was driving, warmth pooled in my center as I thought about how it felt to ride Alex, his thick cock inside me, thrusting into me, driving me to orgasm, those gray eyes looking up at me, hungry and then satisfied after he’d climaxed. I remembered the wonderful wave of my own orgasm shooting through me.
Alex wasn’t the only man I’d ever been with, but he was the only man to make me feel so wanted, so desired, so much like a woman.
I swallowed, trying to resist a moan. Talk about distracted driving.
Fun. That’s all it was: a little fun between two lonely people. I’d wanted Alex for years, and sure, he was the father of my child, but we weren’t the same people anymore. I couldn’t let my heart fall for him so easily. It’d be a stupid mistake.
We both needed to learn who we were first. I couldn’t help but worry that I’d screwed up big time by letting my body do the thinking instead of my head. Whatever I felt for Alex, it couldn’t be described as anything but complicated, and no matter what happened, I had to remember Kadie would always need to come first.
Carl’s house was coming up on the left, so I turned onto his dirt road and followed it down past his house to the small guest house where Alex was staying. I always thought it was weird they called it a cabin since it didn’t really look like one to me, and it wasn’t out in the woods.
I parked my car and then helped Kadie out of her car seat. We headed up to the cabin, and I knocked on the door. My daughter walked in circles around me, humming a song. We waited a good 20 or 30 seconds before I knocked again.
Again, we sat there, only the faint whisper of the wind to keep us company. There was no way he hadn’t heard me. I knocked a third time.