He hadn’t touched her more than wrapping his arms around her in all that time.
Wanting to do this thing right.
Show her how important she was.
“Are you sure about that?” Playfulness clashed with the desire written in her expression. “You seem awfully confident.”
“Completely confident.” His voice was low and rough. Filled with his need for her that had become a living thing in him over the last week. He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. “Can’t wait to kiss you.”
Redness flashed to her cheeks, and a bit of that shyness peeked through. “I’m kind of excited for that, too.”
“When I start, I’m not ever going to stop. You know that, right?” he told her.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Cash jerked back when an engine suddenly roared, and he turned to watch as Matthew peeled out on the gravel and tore out onto the street.
His stomach soured with dread, but it left him like anger. “God, he’s so fucked up right now. I don’t know what his problem is.”
Daisy brushed her fingers down his arm. “I know what it’s like to worry about the ones we love most. About the decisions they’re making.”
Daisy knew it firsthand. It broke his heart that she’d been so worried about her sister. Hadley had completely spiraled. Was clearly strung out, even though she rarely came around.
He looked back at Daisy as she kept pouring out her encouragement. “But we all deal with tragedy in our own way. We have to believe they’ll figure it out. Find themselves in the middle of their grief.”
“I hope so,” he murmured as he curled his arms around her. Knowing he’d never be so foolish to let go. No matter what happened in his life.
THIRTY-FOUR
DAISY
I was nervous.Really freaking nervous.
I was supposed to just show up at Cash’s friend’s house and meet these people he considered family? People I didn’t know when I once felt like I knew Cash better than anyone?
And what? Explain to them what I asked of him? Tell them what I’d gotten him involved in?
Tell them he was going to marry me and start the proceedings to adopt my children, you know, just in case my ex hunted me down and offed me?
Yeah.
They were going to hate me.
“We get to gopway wif dekids?” Eva was bent at the knees, kneeling so low and bouncing that her butt nearly touched the ground. She grinned that beaming smile, my youngest daughter wearing a cute summer romper with white and mint green stripes with a big strawberry on the front.
My heart swelled to overflowing. None of the kids had stopped talking about this little excursion since I told them what we were doing.
A picnic.
A picnic with Cash’s friends.
Before I could answer, Colin cut in, banging a stick on the ground as he called, “Yep, we do! Right, Mr. Cash?”
A shockwave of energy blasted out from where Cash stood near a silver Suburban.
The sky was blue and clear, and birds chirped as they flitted from tree to tree.
