“Hey, sweet girl. It’s okay,” her mother whispered.
Stormi shook her head and I heard a sniffle that ripped my heart open.
The other ladies were trying to gather the kids and get them to move away so they didn’t have a big audience, and to give hermore room to breathe, but then something truly phenomenal happened.
Dexter, Gyth and Summer’s son, moved toward Stormi and sat down beside her. Even though it was hot, he had on a pair of light athletic type pants and yanked up one of his pant legs. Stormi watched him with interest and then her eyes widened.
“I can’t always go as fast as all the others or play as long with my fake leg, but they like me anyway. And we like you.” Everyone had stopped when he approached the little girl, watching the exchange. “You’re our friend forever, Stormi. It’s okay to be different, right, dad?” he asked, looking toward Gyth.
“You bet it is buddy,” Gyth told his son, a proud look on his face.
Embry approached and knelt down next to them. “You’re one of us now,” she told the girl, sounding just like her mom and all the other women whenever they welcomed someone new into their fold. “We all stick together.”
Stormi looked up and gave them a soft smile. Lake had tears swimming in her eyes and I found myself with a few myself. My friends were raising some amazing kids.
“I’m going to go get us all some popsicles,” Embry said, getting up and heading toward the house. She looked over her shoulder and gave a sassy smirk that I was sure she must have learned from her aunt Alley, then said, “He’s a sweet one, that Dexter, but nobody better forget that I’m going to marry him.”
Dexter let out a deep groan, sounding like his father. “Not this again.”
Everyone was laughing, including Lake and Stormi.
I took a deep breath and blew it out, glad everything was okay.
Absently, without thought, my emotions driving me, I placed my hand across my chest and rubbed it. In just a day, Stormi had wormed her way into my heart where I knew she would stay.
Just like her mother.
Chapter Five
LAKE
Bronson drivingme home was a seriously bad idea.
Although I’d declined the drink Alley offered me earlier when we went in the house and I could technically drive, Stormi needed me. She was doing okay, but she was tired and wanted me to hold her. So, after the party wound down and Bronson had made the offer, I accepted.
My daughter and I were cuddled up in the back seat together as he drove. But I knew it wouldn’t always be that way. One day, when she got older she might not allow me to hold her close, hug, kiss, and fawn over her the way I did. So, I was going to take what I could get, for as long as I could get it.
As we neared my house, Bronson grew somber and tension radiated off of him. I knew he said it wasn’t an inconvenience to take us home, but I hadn’t thought about how he would feel going back there after so many years...
After his father’s death.
I also hadn’t taken the time to think about what it would feel like with the two of us together again at the lake. The place we had not only grown up, but where we had grown closer.
But it all ended in a flash the night he’d kiss me.
Kissed me goodbye.
Blowing out a breath, I looked down and realized Stormi had fallen asleep against my side. I’d get her inside quickly and let Bronson be on his way, was my thought. We’d put the whole evening behind us and go about our lives.
There you go lying to yourself again.
Now that Bronson had infiltrated mine and Stormi’s world, I wasn’t sure going back to the way things were would be quite so simple.
He pulled up to the front of the house, turned off the ignition and sat there staring out the window in silence for a moment.
Bronson’s sigh echoed through the interior of his big, matte, green Hummer SUV. It fit him—even if I did wonder how he afforded it— after his military days and the badass presence he put off. Other times, like when playing with the kids or talking to the ladies he turned into a teddy bear. While I’d always known him to be protective when we were growing up, there was a new edge about the man that had just come back into my life.
“It’s been a long time,” he mumbled.
