His expression was tender when he tore his gaze from me and turned it on his daughter, a smile fluttering around his full, full lips.
I wondered if he had the first clue the kind of father he was. Amazing, wonderful, and kind.
“I’d be honored to go to your super, super special place,” I told her, and Frankie did a twirl, spinning me up tighter. My heart winding up in the fibers of this sweet child. Knitting and weaving and uniting.
I could feel it.
The impact of Rex’s daughter becoming a permanent part of me. “Let’s go!”
“Give me just a second to get things organized, Sweet Pea,” Rex said, tossing a few sticks into the ring of rocks.
I walked over and knelt down beside him. “Anything I can do to help?”
A smirk pulled at the corner of his sexy mouth, voice a rough, muted whisper. “Could you do me a favor and lean in closer?”
I was confused before I followed his line of sight to where my shirt was drooped open, cleavage on full display.
I smacked his shoulder. “Rex.” I chuckled beneath my breath.
He laughed from his belly and into the air. It bounded against the cliffs.
Ricocheting back.
Boom after boom that rocked my heart.
* * *
“This way.” Frankie raced ahead of me, hauling me along, her excitement infectious. There was no stopping the permanent smile on my face.
We followed an even narrower, isolated trail than the one we’d taken to get to their picnic spot. Sunlight poured in through the super high trees that towered over us, their trunks slender and their bark gray. Dense branches covered us overhead and soft dirt padded our feet.
We hiked higher, my legs burning from the exertion as we climbed. Five minutes later, we shifted course, the trail guiding us back around to where there was a break in the forest.
My breath caught.
A thundering roar filled my ears, and a cooling spray brushed my skin. We stood on an overhang of rocks that jutted over the lake. Just to the right of us was a rushing waterfall fed from a stream running from the mountain.
It poured over the cliffs and pounded into the lake twenty feet below. Farther away, the cliffs rose in height, fifty or sixty feet high, three more rivulets cascading over the side.
“Whats you fink?” Hope framed Frankie’s features when she grinned up at me.
“I think this might be the most beautiful spot I’ve ever seen.”
“Me, too! You fink Milo likes it? I fink he does. Look at him sniffin’.”
I laughed. “I’m sure Milo loves it. How could he not?”
She tugged at his leash, taking him from my hold. She took off with him down another trail that wound down closer to the lake.
“Be careful, Frankie Leigh,” Rex warned, that voice hitting me from behind. “Stay up here away from the water.”
“’kay, Daddy. I knows all the rules. You don’t have to keep tellin’ me. Sheesh.”
I laughed again. But the sound was stolen when I shifted to look over my shoulder to where Rex stood.
He was watching me.
That gaze piercing.
