“Sadie! Daddy said you slept over. I’m so excited you’re still here!”
As she wrapped her arms around Avery, her gaze rose to Eastern looking straight at her, his eyes so intense, they looked ten times darker than usual.
She swallowed, trying to clear the lump in her throat. “I’m excited to be here too, baby girl.”
Avery grabbed her wrist and tugged her toward the island. “Daddy’s making smiley face pancakes.”
Sadie’s brows rose. “Smiley face pancakes?”
Eastern nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Blueberries for the mouth, bananas and blueberries for the eyes, a strawberry for the nose and bacon for the hair.” His deep, gravelly voice slid into her veins, turning her blood molten.
“And maple syrup as skin cream.” Avery giggled.
Despite her nerves, Sadie chuckled. “I like it.”
“Did you sleep well in Daddy’s bed?” Avery asked. “I think his bed is too hard. He should have let you sleep on the couch, not the other way around.”
Ah, so he’d told his daughter he’d slept on the couch.
“Didyou sleep well?” he asked, voice once again all too sexy.
“I slept great.” A lot better than she had in a long time, actually.
He dipped his head. “Good. Me too.”
When his gaze held hers, it almost felt like something passed between them. But Avery soon cut through the silence, her words spoken so quickly they ran into each other.
Avery was in the middle of telling them about a project she was doing at school that day when a phone beside her vibrated on the island. It wasn’t Sadie’s phone, so it had to be Eastern’s. Her gaze flicked down to the cell—and something hard and uncomfortable coiled in her belly.
Because there on the screen was a message from Jamie.
What exactly wasinthe text, Sadie didn’t know, because it didn’t show on the screen. It was just her name.
She grabbed the cell and passed it to Eastern, keeping the screen angled away from Avery. His brow furrowed when he looked at it, and he clicked a few things before locking the screen and dropping the phone back onto the island.
“Wait, I’ll go get the project and show you,” Avery said, oblivious to what had just happened as she jumped off the stool and ran out of the kitchen.
Sadie nibbled her bottom lip as she watched Eastern. “Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine.”
That was all he said before giving her a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and turning back to the stove.
Hurt cut through her chest. It was probably irrational. Anything said between him and Jamie was exactly that, between them. And even if it wasn’t, this wasn’t the best time to talk about it.
But it was a little reminder that Eastern and Jamie were Avery’s parents…Sadie wasn’t. And their family dynamics were none of her business.
Jamie:I need to talk to you.
That one fucking sentence had been toying with him all day. What exactly did she need to talk to him about? And why not just call?
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. Jarrad, his least favorite deputy, sat beside him as he drove.
Eastern hadn’t called her back, because after breakfast, the morning had been a rush of saying goodbye to Sadie, getting Avery ready for school and him getting to work.
He scrubbed a hand over his face as he pulled the car to a stop in front of a house, still thinking about the hurt that had crossed Sadie’s face after Jamie’s text. Hurt because he’d brushed it off and hadn’t explained it. And even though it hadn’t been the right time to talk to her about the text, shediddeserve to know what was happening with Jamie, because she loved Avery as much as he did.
He just needed to find out what the hell the woman wanted first.
