I was agitated.

Pissed and confused.

A disorder trembling me to the bone.

As hard as I tried, there was no corralling it. No shaking the bristling anger that had followed me through all of last night and into this morning.

It was a blinding fury that had taken to my veins when I’d found her backed into a corner by that piece of shit.

Hell. It’d been ignited the second I’d looked up from the table and saw him talking to her.

I didn’t even know her, and she sure as hell wasn’t mine, but I couldn’t stomach the idea of her leaving with him. Of her going back to his place or maybe him going to hers.

The vision of him following her up her stairs had made me want to claw my eyes out. Two of them falling into her bed.

It was no surprise he turned out to be a pussy-bitch pretty boy who had the misconception he had the right to reach out and take whatever he wanted whether someone wanted to give it or not.

Would have relished in teaching him the lesson.

Enlightening the fucker on what it meant to show a little respect.

But that was the problem when someone affected you. The problem when someone got under your skin. When someone made you start entertaining all kinds of foolish ideas. Ideas of stepping up and getting involved in matters that were none of your concern.

Treading a line you had no business walking.

That fact had never been as striking as when she’d reached out and touched me at the bar. She was making me want things I couldn’t want.

Things I had no fucking right to take.

But it didn’t matter.

They’d been there, and I knew I had to get the fuck away before I did something I couldn’t take back.

Before I crossed a line I couldn’t cross.

I had one priority.

One focus.

A single reason to keep on the straight and narrow.

And that reason was currently hurtling down the walkway.

Brown hair flying and spirit soaring. Grin wide. As bright as the sun that blazed as it climbed the sky behind her.

The second I’d pulled my truck to the curb, she’d bolted out my mom’s front door, arms lifted over her head and that sweet voice riding the wind.

“Daddy!”

I hopped out of my truck and went straight for her, scooped her up, and tossed her into the air.

Let her laughter rain down around me. A drenching reminder of what I was living for. I caught her, hugging her close while she tightened her chubby arms around my neck in a death grip. “Daddy! Guess what?”

I pulled back a fraction so I could see her face. “What?”

“Grammy gots me paints, and I painted a tree and a mountain and a squirrel, and now I’m gonna be an artist and take paintin’ lessons and be the best dancer in the whole world and Wonder Woman when I goes to the gym with you.”

It was then that I spotted the thick smear of white paint across her cheek and the rainbow of splatters on her shirt.

I glanced at my mother, who was grinning like the Cheshire where she leaned against the doorjamb with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Now you’re going to be an artist, too, huh?”

“Uh-huh. Grammy said my picture was so, so pretty. You think I could sell it and get so much money and then I can buy a dog? Oh, Daddy, please, I wants a puppy so bad.”

I chuckled under my breath because it was the only thing I could do.

“I don’t think a puppy is a good idea right now, Frankie Leigh.”

“Oh, but, Daddy!” She stuck out her bottom lip before she grinned. “You wants to see my picture?”

I laughed. “Nothing I’d like better than to see that picture.”

Wasn’t lying last night. The child was a handful. A whirlwind that spun from one idea to the next without giving me time to process the first.

Sweet to the brim.

Most likely because all those dreams and ideas were gushing out from the inside.

I arched a brow at my mom as we approached. “So, we’re painting again?”

Taking the single step up to the door, I dropped a kiss to Mom’s cheek.

Her smile grew. “Oh, yes. We are definitely painting again. We had a blast, didn’t we, Frankie Leigh?”

“So, so, SO much fun. Can I spend the night here every night?”

I feigned offense. “And you’re going to leave your daddy all by his lonesome every night.”

Frankie’s horror was real. “Oh, no, Daddy. You can spends the night here, too. Right, Grammy?”

“Oh, Sweet Pea Frankie Leigh, I think your daddy might be too old for sleepovers. Unless he finally decides to start participating in the right kind. You know, of the adult variety.”

The last she mumbled under her breath, and the woman had the nerve to shoot me a wink.

Mom had just turned fifty-two and was about as pretty as they came. The years had been good to her, and her spirit was as free as Frankie’s.

“Sly, Ma. Real sly.”

She laughed. “Oh, everyone needs a little push in the right direction every now and again. Speaking of, how was last night?”

I shrugged. “Uneventful.”

That felt like a bold-faced lie.

But the last thing I needed to do was mention Rynna moving in across the street. Mom would hop on that so fast that I’d never hear the end of it.

I set Frankie back on her feet, scooting her in the direction of her room. “Go get your stuff, Sweet Pea.”

She took off down the hall, and I straightened and looked at my mom. Obviously, she was dying for any juicy details she could get.

“Met Ollie and Kale for a couple of drinks then called it a night,” I told her.

A long, restless night.

A pucker formed on Mom’s lips. “You’re no fun. Here I am, nice enough to have your daughter over for the entire night, and you don’t even do me the service of having a wild night on the town. You know I’ll be having one tonight.”

Amusement shook my head. “You really are a terrible influence. I think I’m going to have to rethink these sleepovers.”

She pressed a hand over her heart. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Don’t test me.” It was purely a tease.

Everything about her softened. “How are my boys?”

A smile ticked up at the corner of my mouth. “Good. Kale has the weekend off, so I’m sure he’s off making up for any fun I’m not having. Ollie is . . . it was twelve years yesterday.”

A soft puff of air blew from her mouth. “Oh . . . I didn’t even realize. How is he doing?”

“As well as can be expected, I guess.”

Or maybe worse than could be expected. I didn’t fucking know.

God knew that it still ate me alive.

A beat of silence hovered in the atmosphere, that same sadness that was always there, lurking in the background, before Frankie broke it. She came bursting back into the living room with her backpack bouncing on her shoulders, a poster board in one hand and her doll clutched to her chest with the other.

“Look it, Daddy.”

Proudly, Frankie lifted her painting that was nothing but thick swashes of color.

“That’s beautiful, Sweet Pea.”

“What are we gonna do today?” she dove right in. “You wants to go swimming?”

I swung her into my arms. “Is that what you want to do? Go to the lake?”

She grinned that grin. The one that knocked all the foolishness free and the sense back into me. My heart heavy and full.

Devoted.

“Yes!”

I ruffled a hand through her rebellious hair. “Then, it sounds like we’re going to the lake.”

* * *

My headlights cut through the emerging night.

Twilight was at its deepest, the entire earth cast in that shadowy blue that stifled the air in the moments just before the night fully took hold of the day.

Frankie and I had spent the entire day at the lake, playing in the water, hiking, building a fire, and grilling the burgers I’d picked up before we’d taken the twenty-minute drive out to our favorite spot. The lake calm, the beach secluded, the sky cloudless.

It’d been the perfect kind of afternoon.

That same twenty-minute drive home had rocked Frankie to sleep in the back of the truck, her little head bobbing to one side where she dozed in her car seat.

I pulled my truck into the driveway at the side of the house and killed the engine before going directly for Frankie, unbuckling her and then lifting her into my arms.

She felt so small and light like this, when all that energy had finally drained and she was just the tiny little thing that had been given into my care. The one who needed me to protect and shield her. Her shelter and her harbor.

I angled her to the side so I could slide the key into the lock and let us into the stillness of the small house that I did my very best to make a home. Half the time it felt like I didn’t have a single clue what the fuck I was doing, but I got up every single morning and did it anyway.

Frankie barely stirred when I laid her on her twin bed and tugged the flip-flops from her feet, changed her into her pajamas, and tucked her under the cool sheet. Her head was on her pillow, those wild, tangled locks all around her. I brushed them back from her face, gazing down at her and wondering how something so good could come out of a situation that was so utterly fucked.

Wondering if she was my blessing.

My reprieve.

Or if the insane worry that constantly roiled inside me was another element of the curse that would haunt me for the rest of my days.

Pushing it down in the depths of my spirit, I leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, silently promising her it didn’t make a difference either way.

That it didn’t change my devotion to her.

This mad kind of love that took up every cell in my body. It came into existence the first time I’d held her in my arms.

Sparked to life that cold winter night.

A permanent flame.

One I’d thought had been forever dimmed.

On a sigh, I pushed to my feet and shuffled from her room, leaving the door open a crack and a light on in the hall in case she needed me. I headed into the kitchen, pulled a cold beer from the fridge, and popped the cap.

I took a swig as I peered out the kitchen window. It was the exact same picture that’d been there since the day I’d moved in. Though, I doubted I could ever consider the view the same.