Jake

I caught Jamie and wrapped my arms around her.

“Sorry I wasn’t here this morning when you woke up,” I said in her ear and then kissed her cheek.

Her little arms tightened around my neck and a lump formed in my throat.

Dad was still grumbling. Jacque had been right. He kept talking about a poker game, debt owed, and Mom. None of it made sense to me. I left him striding over to the office muttering to himself and kept an eye on him. I didn’t want him to disappear again.

“Did you eat dinner?” I asked my daughter.

“Yes.” She pointed at Honey.

I wasn’t sure of my reception. I met her eye. Then I put Jamie on her feet. “Why don’t you find a movie for us to watch?”

She bobbed her head and skipped to the coffee table to pick up on the remote. When the TV flipped on, I walked into the kitchen on the other side of the massive island to put as much distance between my daughter and me. I didn’t want her to accidently overhear one word that was said.

I stopped three feet in front of Honey. “I’m sorry.”

All her anger from before was gone. When she didn’t call me a rat bastard, I stepped forward.

“Stop,” she said softly. “We can’t. Besides, I plan to contact the agency to be reassigned.”

“Honey,” I pleaded.

She continued to shake her head. “I know you don’t want to be with Tara, but I don’t think you’ve given her enough of a chance and I can’t be here to witness it. Jamie needs—”

“Jamie doesn’t need a mother like her in her life, especially when that mother tries to rape her father.”

That word rape sounded foreign on my tongue, but it was the quickest and easiest way to explain what had happened.

Honey looked on the verge of laughing until she noticed my impassive face. She stepped closer to me after a glance in Jamie’s direction.

“What happened?”

The fact her fist balled brought joy back in my heart. Maybe there was still hope after all.

“She drugged me and I woke up with her trying to ride my dick.”

Honey gasped and covered her mouth. “But how did she manage to drug you?”

I stepped closer still. Less than a few inches separated us.

“She brought me a beer wanting to clear the air. I hadn’t touched it and didn’t plan to. Then Dad came out and let it out that he’d caught her sleeping with a ranch hand we had at the time when I was deployed. He caught them right about the time I came home on leave and Jamie was conceived.”

Her eyes doubled in size, putting two and two together. “She admitted it?”

I nodded. “After I told her to leave, she dropped that little nugget about you being married and showed me a headline.” I shook my head. “I should have questioned it. Instead, I drank that beer down, so messed up over the two bombs she’d dropped.”

She clasped my hands and I met her eyes. “No. I mean, yes, I wish you would have asked me about it instead of accusing me. But I’d be heartless not to see how all of that dumped on you would have clouded your judgement.”

I lifted our joined hands and kissed her knuckles. “I fucked up.”

“She fucked up.” She stopped and looked over toward the TV. Jamie was still scrolling through channels. “I’m glad she’s not here. I couldn’t be responsible for what I might do. When did this happen?”

“Last night, technically. I called the cops and subjected myself to making a statement and having my dick swabbed for traces of DNA and my semen because I don’t know if I—” I held her gaze, hoping she could forgive me for what had happened. “I had to go through that so it’s on the record. I don’t care what Jamie’s DNA says. She’s mine. And they’ll have to take her for my dead cold hands before I give her up. And no way do I want her to have any custody.”

She blinked and I couldn’t believe that Tara’s shit had clouded my judgment. I knew Honey wouldn’t lie to me like Tara would.

“You did the right thing,” she said, then she lifted on her toes, looped her arms around my neck, and kissed me.

I clutched her hips and dragged her even closer, needing this contact. But then I let her go because there were things I needed to know.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were married?” I asked.

Fire sparked in her eyes, but it quickly cooled. She glanced away a second as if to decide how to explain.

“Technically, I was never married. That’s what an annulment is.”

If she waited for a reaction, I waited for her to continue.

“How did you meet and get married, technically?”

I tried not to sound flippant. I just wanted to understand the backstory. The guy obviously wasn’t out of her life. If she was in mine, I wanted to understand the nature of their relationship.

“It was dumb. We were in Vegas for a bachelorette party for a girl that had graduated nursing school with me. She was marrying a doctor and he’d gotten her into the VIP section of this ritzy nightclub. Our rooms were in the same hotel. I’d brought Ashlyn and we figured why not get drunk. We wouldn’t need a cab. And the band showed up.”

She stopped like that was possibly the end. “How did you end up married?”

She shrugged. “It’s honestly kind of foggy. I think it might have been a dare. Well, at least to me it felt like a joke and we were just playing around.”

“So you and Axel just got married.”

“No, not just me and him. Ashlyn married Diesel too. Something about the brothers wanting to marry best friends.”

She tossed her hand in the air as if dismissing that.

“You’re still friends, so why didn’t you stay married?”

She looked at me like that was a dumb question.

“He’s a rock star and I’m not,” she said.

“So?”

I couldn’t help pressing her. I had to know if there was any chance she had feelings for this guy.

“So,” she said with exaggerated slowness. “He likes traveling the world and I like going on a short vacation and coming home.”

“That’s it?” It felt like a flimsy excuse. “You seem like you get along well.”

“We do,” she said. “He says I’m real. I’m the only person in the world who doesn’t want something from him because when we divorced he tried to offer me a settlement.” At my raised eyebrows, she clarified. “I told him we’d been married a day. He had his accountant figure out what portion of his money I should have based on a day and it was an unreal amount of money. I didn’t want it.”

“What about his brother? His flesh and blood didn’t want the best for him?”

“His brother wanted him to do the band thing. Axel only wanted to write music even though he has a great voice and can play most instruments. He compromised and writes all their songs, but he chose to play drums so he could be as far behind the band as possible.”

That gave me pause because I was starting to respect the guy. I had to give him one thing for having great taste in women, but Honey was mine. I’d talk to him about that later.

“So where’d he go? When I didn’t see your car, I thought you’d left anyway.”

“He borrowed it.”

“Good.” I took her hand. “Let’s watch a movie with Jamie.”