Page 12 of Burned
“My name is Wade,” he says, stepping forward and holding out his hand, ever the gentleman.
“Wade!” Poppy grabs his hand in hers and shakes it wildly until he’s in a fit of laughter. “It’s so nice to meet you!”
“Joey, go on in and tell your grammy that Poppy here needs to eat something. We’ll be inside in a second.”
“You got it, Daddy!” She salutes me and grabs Wade’s hand, dragging him behind her as she screams at the top of her lungs for her grammy.
“We don’t talk about their momma,” I tell Poppy as she stands from her squat.
“Not my business to talk about.” She looks at me seriously, but just earlier, she said she didn’t have a filter, and around my kids…that worries me.
I nod after a moment and then lead her toward the front steps.
“How old?” she asks, squinting when the sun hits her face. It makes her nose crinkle and shows off those damn freckles. I add those to the list of things I shouldn’t be noticing about the new girl.
“Joey is six, and Wade is five. Irish twins.”
She laughs, but it’s not in her normal mocking way toward me. When I meet her eyes, she’s got a genuine smile on her face.
“Was Wade a happy accident?” She nudges my bicep with her shoulder. Heat explodes at her contact.
“You could say that.”
“So, we don’t talk about their mom. Can I ask what happened there?” When she sees what I’m assuming is a grimace on my face, she backtracks. “Sorry, like I said, no filter. You don’t even know me. You don’t have to tell me anything.”
I shrug. “She wanted Montana, ’til she didn’t. She wanted me, ’til she didn’t. And she wanted those kids, ’til she didn’t.”
“She’s not present at all?”
“Not unless you count a card every birthday and Christmas with a five-dollar bill inside that’s always sent from some new address. We never know where she is, and we like to keep it that way.”
She hums and kicks the ground as she walks. “That’s sad. They seem like great kids.”
“I’d like to think so.”
“They’re very cute. Although, I’m sure they both have an ornery streak in them that runs wild.” She laughs to herself. “They look like you,” she tells me, smiling up at me again.
That smile is dangerous. That smile holds promises that I want to explore. Things that I haven’t explored since Wade was conceived. Hell, probably long before that. Being a single dad doesn’t leave much time for dating, not that I’d change a thing for those kids. They’re my whole world.
But with their momma leaving, and both them and the ranch becoming my full responsibility, I swore off the trouble that women could bring into my life long ago. My dick still doesn’t seem to get the memo, though, as she crosses her arms and pushes her tits together under the grey T-shirt she’s wearing.
I grunt in response to her statement.
“Always grunting,” she says as I open the front door for her. The smell of biscuits wafts toward us as she pauses to really look me over. I stand a little taller under her gaze, and I’m ashamed to admit I think I puffed my chest out a bit. “I’ll crack you sooner or later, Rhett Black.”
Damn, if I’m not tempted to let her try.
SeeingRhett in dad mode is off-putting.
And by off-putting, I mean extremely adorable and way too sexy for my lady bits to handle. I swear my ovaries liquify watching how his kids dote on him and how he gives them all the love in the world right back. It’s such a dichotomy, watching him with me and then watching him with them. He saves all of his sweet smiles and calming voice for kids and animals, it seems. I’m the lucky one that gets all the grunts and raised eyebrows. Oh, and the manhandling. Can’t forget the manhandling.
He leans over and picks Jolene up, her awkwardly long and lanky limbs wrapping around him like a koala. Both of the kids are at that age where their limbs are outgrowing their bodies, making them look like little aliens running around.
“Hi, Poppy!” his mom says, her warm smile and even warmer eyes greeting me as she reaches out for a hug. She wraps me up tight, and the smell of flour invades my senses. I blink back tears when the memory of my grandmother pops into my mind. “My name is Katherine. And I heard you met Clyde yesterday?”
“I did.” I smile at her when she pulls away and walks back over to the countertop where she’s rolling out some dough. “Nice to see you again,” I tell him when he pulls out a chair for me at the table.
“Take a seat, take a seat,” he says before patting me on the shoulder and helping me scoot the chair in. “Katherine here makes enough for the entire farm damn near every day. And today, we have biscuits and gravy with eggs and sausage. Oh! And her homemade strawberry jam.”