“You want to claim the boy?” I growl. “You steppin’ up to put a roof over his head? Food on his plate? Clothes on his back? You volunteering to pay child support for the next seventeen years?”
His jaw ticks again, but his eyes drop from Little C as the true reality of what it takes to be a father roots in his mind.
“What’s your surname?” I ask him. “Date of birth? So Joelle here can find you when she needs things?”
“A boy deserves to know his father,” he grinds out.
“A father worth knowing, but that ain't you, is it? You're a man who got what he wanted and split.”
“You know jack about who I am,” he says, and I snort.
“I know exactly who you are.”
He lunges forward, stupid and reckless, finally shamed enough to react to the truth, and I shove him again. Caleb catches his arm and twists until the man yelps, dropping to one knee.
I lean in, nostrils flaring, jabbing him in the chest. “You touch them,” I growl, “You even think about them, and you’re goin’ home without your teeth and a year’s worth of child support back payments to find.”
People begin to stare, a small circle forming around us. Joelle’s breath shakes as Little C whimpers, tiny handsfisting in her dress.
Raylan tries to jerk free. “This ain’t over!”
“Yes,” Caleb says, voice low and deadly, his usual softness gone, “it is.”
I lean down until I’m eye-to-eye with the bastard. “Don’t test us, Raylan,” I hiss. Then I lower my voice to a whisper. “I’ll put you in the ground before I let you hurt another hair on that woman’s head—somewhere no one will find your worthless corpse. I have acres and acres of dirt just waitin’ on some fertilizer.”
He jerks his arm loose and stumbles backward, fury contorting his face, but he leaves without looking back, legs striding, arms pumping, head low, proving everything I said about him. I grab Joelle immediately, cupping her cheek, brushing tears from her lashes as Little C hides against her neck.
“Hey,” I murmur, pulling her into my chest. “It’s okay. It’s okay. He’s gone, and he’s not coming back. You understand me?”
Caleb rubs the baby’s back, whispering soft, soothing nonsense. “Shh, little man. You’re safe. We got you.”
Joelle trembles so hard I can feel it through my shirt.
“I’m sorry,” she keeps whispering. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what? I say firmly. “You don’t apologize, you hear me? Not for this. Not for him. Not ever. That man’s all hat and no cattle. Not worth a single emotion, let alone a tear.”
She buries her face in my chest, crying silently as Caleb wraps his arm around her shoulders.
We stand in the middle of the fair, the three of us and the baby we’d defend to our last breaths, while the world keeps spinning around us as if nothing happened.
And I know, without a doubt, I’d fight that man again ahundred times if it means keeping her and that little boy safe.
They’re ours.
And no worthless piece of shit is taking them.
Not now.
Not ever.
Chapter 25
Joelle
By the time we pull up the drive to the ranch, my bones feel hollow. Asleep in his car seat, Little C barely stirs when I take him out, his tiny fingers curling in my dress. Even his warm weight can’t stop the trembling inside me.
The porch light glows softly through the gathering dark, a welcome beacon. I carry him straight upstairs, changing him into his softest pajamas, smoothing his curls and brushing my fingertips along his cheek. He sighs in that tiny, trusting way babies do, the way that shatters your heart clean in two and at the same time makes you smile.
