Page 28 of Damaged Protector
“Bella! Good grief, child. You made a mess all over Mallori’s clothes,” Shiloh cried, jumping up to grab a wet cloth.
“I sorry,” the toddler told me, giving me the puppy dog eyes as her mom began swiping at the fuzzy material over my chest.
“It’s fine. I can just throw it in the wash. I was planning to get a thinner one anyway. I seriously underestimated the heat down here in Texas.”
“Shopping?” Shiloh’s eyebrows lifted in interest.
“You want to come? I don’t know where the closest stores are.” Plus, I’d love to spend more time with Cam’s wife.
“Yes!” she said eagerly, turning her attention to cleaning her daughter’s face before mirroring my thoughts. “It will give us a chance to get to know each other when we’re not behind a phone screen.”
She lifted the freshly cleaned child and plopped her in Cam’s lap. Before she could say a word, he nodded as if reading her mind. “On duty, ma’am.” Then he pressed his nose into his daughter’s hair and closed his eyes, as if inhaling her sweet scent. “You want to hang with me and Uncle Hawk, Little Angel? We can go to the park.”
“Great,” Shiloh said. “I’ll call Bristol.”
“Aw damn,” Hawk groaned. He patted my shoulder with a large hand, his eyes sympathetic. “Good luck, Mal. Hope you survive.”
What the hell?
Chapter 8
“This is Tank and Bristol’s house,” Shiloh said, pulling the silver SUV up to the curb. “So you don’t get confused, Bris and his grandmother both call him by his real name, Waylon, but everyone else refers to him as Tank because…”
She didn’t have to finish the sentence because a giant of a man appeared on the porch of a lovely white brick home. I’d thought Hawk was big, but dayum! This guy had to be over six-and-a-half feet tall with a huge body that fit his nickname perfectly. What the hell do they feed these Navy SEAL guys?
Tank was blond with a kind face, and he had a little girl on his hip. She appeared to be around Bella’s age.
Then a tiny woman with lavender hair busted out the door and stopped beside him, tickling the child’s chin. Tank kissed the older lady affectionately on the top of her head.
My eyes practically popped out of my head. “Is that his wife?” She had to be at least seventy.
Shiloh busted out laughing. “No, that’s Gram, his grandmother. Bristol is… oh, there she is.”
A freaking bombshell exited, closing the red front door behind her, a Louis Vuitton purse slung over one shoulder. Her hair was dark, and she had a small freckle beside her red-painted lips that only made her gorgeous face more appealing.
Tank’s blue eyes roved up and down her perfect curves, and his hand snaked down behind her. Is he grabbing her ass? The man appeared to want to toss her down on the porch and have his way with her. If only his grandma and baby weren’t present. And if it weren’t broad daylight in the middle of a nice subdivision.
Instead, he leaned down and kissed her, and she smiled as she wiped away the smudge of lipstick left on his lips. Then he kissed her again, and he seemed to wear the red with pride.
Shiloh had the sunroof open, so I could hear snippets of their conversation drifting across the hot, still air.
“Oh, don’t you two get started,” Gram complained. “We got shopping to do.”
The couple grinned at each other, and I could practically feel the love snapping between them. I wish I could find someone who looks at me like that…
“Aren’t they hot together?” Shiloh asked, jolting me from my musings.
I turned to her. “Totally. They looked like they were about to,” I bobbed my eyebrows up and down, “you know.”
“Yes, I do know. When they start eyeballing each other, the rest of us just sit back and wait. It’s only a matter of time before Tank has her hauled over his shoulder and out the door. One time at our house, they got all the way to the car before they remembered they left Amelia.”
I giggled. “That’s hilarious.”
“Yeah, they came back in, looking all chagrined. Tank was like, ‘Uh, we forgot our baby.’ I told them to go on home, and Amelia could have a sleepover with Bella.” Shiloh’s eyes shifted back toward the house. “Oh goody! It looks like Gram is coming too. It’s always fun when she tags along.”
The group was walking toward us, and I hopped out of the vehicle so Gram could sit in the front.
“You must be Mallori,” Bristol said, reaching me first and wrapping her arms around me. “I’m so happy to finally meet you.”