Page 31 of Damaged Protector
“Does that guy look creepy?” Tank asked, nodding toward an older man sitting on a nearby bench with his face buried in a John Grisham novel.
“Yeah. Yeah, he does,” Cam mused, squinting in that direction. “What the hell is he doing here anyway? He’s not with a kid.”
I restrained myself from rolling my eyes. “He’s reading. In a public park.”
“I don’t know,” Tank mused. “He’s wearing those creepy Jeffrey Dahmer glasses. Definitely suspicious.”
Cam straightened and rubbed his hands up and down his royal-blue Bermuda shorts. “Maybe we should go talk to him.”
I laid a hand on his arm to stop him from rising. “Guys, don’t get crazy. He’s just an old man at the park. Probably has a nagging wife at home and wanted to get out of the house.”
“Or he could be here to kidnap children,” Cam noted, his lips tightening.
“Just settle down. If he makes a move, we’re on it,” I assured him.
I couldn’t even imagine being a parent. These two were constantly on the lookout for people trying to steal their kids. Fucking paranoid, but I guessed I understood. There were a lot of shitty people in the world. We were all fully aware of how the world worked from our time spent in the military.
And after what happened to Shiloh, I couldn’t really fault Cam for his constant state of worry.
He pulled his eyes from the man he’d been eyeballing and returned his focus to the little ones. “Thanks for letting Mal stay with you, Hawk. I hope she hasn’t been a bother.”
“Nah, she’s fine. We watched McQuade last night.”
Cam laughed. “I should have known you two would get along. We used to take family vacations together, and she would make me and Collin watch Chuck Norris films all the time. Her dad got her hooked on them.”
The girls ran up then, both sweaty and smiling. “Can we go play at the splash pad, Daddy? Pretty please?” Bella cajoled.
“Sounds like a plan.” He turned to Tank. “Did Amelia wear her swimsuit?”
“Yep,” the big guy said, rising and picking up his daughter.
We walked to the other side of the park, and the dads helped the girls take off their T-shirts and shorts. They both wore pink swimsuits underneath, Bella’s a polka dot bikini and Amelia’s a cute floral one-piece with ruffles on the bottom.
“Have fun, girls. We’ll be right here,” Cam said, pointing to a bench a few feet away. “And don’t run.”
Amelia and Bella took off at a sprint anyway, and their fathers let out a collective sigh.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you, what was the deal with the ice cream today? Did Mallori really say she’s never eaten real ice cream?”
Tank’s head jerked back in surprise, and Cam nodded, his jaw clenched. “I’m sure it was her fucking mother, Karen. She’s a tyrant. She made everything in the kid’s life about dance. We barely even got to see her after she turned about seven. Instead of family holidays, she was always at a competition or something.”
“And how old is Mallori now?” Tank asked.
“Ummm, let’s see. I’m thirty-eight so that would make her twenty-four.”
“I thought she just graduated from college,” I wondered.
“She did, but she didn’t go straight to college after high school. She traveled Europe to dance for a couple years.”
“Well, I’m glad she moved here,” Tank said. “It doesn’t sound like she had a very healthy home life.”
“Yeah, she needed to get away from Karen. I hate that she can’t stay with us right now. Dad’s construction company is having to rip up all the flooring on that side of the house. It needed to be replaced anyway, but I wasn’t planning to do it until the fall.”
“I would offer to let her stay at our house, but Gram’s staying with us right now,” Tank told us. “They’re adding phase two at Country Acres, and she’s moving in there, but construction is behind. She was only supposed to be with us for a week, but something in the new building didn’t meet code. So now all the stuff from her old apartment is in our house. It’s a fucking mess.”
“Mallori is fine at my place. I’ll look after her until she can move into your place, Cam.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, discomfort evident on his face. “Could you maybe, you know… tone down your activities while she’s there? I know that’s asking a lot.”