“Is this Mr. Rourke?”
I can still hear the underlying sadness in the police officer’s voice from the call I answered nine years ago—the one that changed everything.
“You are Ellie Harper-Rourke’s father, correct? I’m unfortunately ringing today to let you know about the sudden passing of her mother Holly Harper. She was in a car collision yesterday and didn’t make it. As it stands, you are her only parent, and have an important decision to make.”
Step up as dad. Or refuse, and send Ellie off for adoption.
My heart breaking for my child, and her mother…it was an easy decision.
To save my daughter from a system I know all too well myself.
A summer breeze blows in through the window and knocks me out of my trance. Downstairs, I hear my daughter giggling the carefree way a nine-year-old should.
It restores warmth to my chest.
Long Island was too busy for Ellie. She was only six months old when Holly passed. We got along okay there for a few years, but bad omens clung to that place. I was determined to get her out of Long Island. We needed a fresh start. Ellie needed a new school. The teachers never gave much of a shit about her, and a precious girl like Ellie deserves teachers who are interested in more than their wages at the end of the month.
New York is like that.
I knew Maple Crossing would be good for her.
And I wasn’t wrong.
Ellie has friends already, and her new teachers care just as much about her education as I do. Things were shaping up…
Until Hart sucked me back into her world.
I don’t know how long I’ll be able to fake that I’m okay with this. Especially now that she’s living under my roof with her son.
A son whose existence means she’s had sex with another man…
Anonymous:Since we’ve both had stressful days, how about a photo each? You first.
This is new. The woman never requests photos.
She tells me her pussy is wet, but I need solid proof.
Me:Why am I going first?
Anonymous:Because I have a feeling that you’re already hard. Remember that time you told me you were “packing” last week? Yeah…I’m gonna need to see evidence.
I was drunk with Marco and some other off-duty firemen at the time when I said a little more than I should have.
We’d only been sexting for a day at that point, but Marco insisted I drop that bomb to pick up the pace. If there’s one person on this earth more concerned about my sex drive than I am, it’s the officer I’m partnered with.
The woman has an intriguing air of confidence about her. I work up an erection even though I don’t even know her name, her face, or what she does for work.
But dry times call for desperate measures.
I navigate over to the camera app on my phone and begin to unzip…
There’s a knock at my door. Three soft beats. Each equally spaced.
“Ellie.” I zip up my pants in a hurry, discard the phone and leap off the bed. “What is it?”
She opens the door with a confused look written across her face. “How do you know Piper?”
“She’s…a friend I knew a long time ago when I first visited here.”
