CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Hello?” I said breathlessly, nearly falling out of bed trying to grab my cell phone off the nightstand.

“Eva’s tellin’ me you’re campin’ with Anabeth and her family?”

My brain stalled out.

Father.

My father was on the phone.

And I’d completely forgotten about everything other than Ripper and the past week we’d spent together.

“Yes,” I choked out, my hand over my pounding heart, trying desperately to swallow the sudden anxiety that, at the sound of my father’s voice, had lodged itself in my throat.

“Yeah, well, I’m back, so when you comin’ home?”

“Tomorrow,” I said quickly.

There was a long pause. “Like to spend some time with you, baby girl,” he said gruffly. “I know I’ve been—”

“Don’t,” I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut, counteracting my burgeoning tears.

“Danny girl,” he said softly. “I—”

“Please, Daddy, don’t do this now, not over the phone.”

I could absolutely not listen to his excuses and apologies right now, not while I was happy for the first time in over a year. I wasn’t going to let him ruin this for me too.

He cleared his throat. “I just wanna see my daughter, Danny, that’s all. I know I got some time to make up for.”

Between his recent parental absenteeism and his inability to salvage his relationship with the only woman on earth who’d ever truly loved him despite his many faults, he suddenly wanted to do some father/daughter bonding?

What had changed?

But no matter how much I wanted to scream at him, to tell him he didn’t deserve to spend time with me, I couldn’t. He’d taken Cage and me when our mother ran off, no questions asked, and never once complained about it. He’d always made sure we were cared for in his absence. Yes, there were a lot of absences, and yes, he could be a hard man, a brooding, miserable man, a man who was better at running and hiding than expressing his feelings.

But he was my father.

And I loved him.

“Eva’s home,” he continued when I didn’t say anything.

She was? With him? Had he found his missing heart in North Dakota?

“Are you…together?” I asked, hoping and praying they were.

I felt Ripper’s arms snake around my middle and pull me backward, feeling his thick ropey scars as his chest slid up my bare back. He pressed a kiss into my hair and a tear snuck through the corner of my closed lids. I quickly swiped it away.

“We’re together,” my father said quietly. “Asked her to marry me last night.”

All breath fled my lungs.

“What did she say?” I whispered.

“What the fuck do you think?”

I smiled. Now that sounded more like my father. “Yes?”

“Yeah, darlin’,” he said gruffly. “She said yes.”

I sucked in a deep breath. She’d said yes. She’d said yes. Things were going to finally get back to normal. I was going to have my family back. No more lonely nights spent eating dinner alone and watching bad television.

“I’ll be home tomorrow,” I said, my voice firmer.

“Good,” he said and hung up.

I pressed end and set my phone back down.

“Your old man?” Ripper asked.

“Yeah,” I whispered, turning in his arms and snuggling into his embrace. “He asked Eva to marry him.”

“No shit? Damn. Didn’t see that shit comin’.”

I scattered kisses along the largest scar on his chest. One of his hands found the small of my back and the other slid up into my hair, gripping my head. “Neither did I,” I murmured. “But you know what this means?”

“We’re gonna fuck again?”

“No,” I whispered. It meant if my father was happy again, Ripper might be able to tell him about us without worrying about flying bullets.

“Baby,” he said, studying me. “You’re thinkin’ again.”

“I’m not.”

“Nose is all scrunched up, eyes unfocused, lips parted. Yeah, you’re thinkin’ again.”

I scowled at him. “You think you know everything.”

“No,” he said softly. “I don’t know shit, never did. But, baby, for some fuckin’ reason, I know you. Crazy, yeah?”

“Ripper,” I whispered, staring up into his eyes, a deep beautiful blue, one real and one made of glass, thinking about how right it felt to be with him. “We can tell him now,” I said, feeling hopeful. “We could wait awhile but then—”

Ripper let out an exasperated sigh as he pushed me away from him. Rolling unto his back, he glared up at the ceiling.

“No, Danny, how many times I gotta tell you, no one is tellin’ him nothin’. It ain’t gonna matter if Eva and him are doin’ better, he ain’t never gonna let me be with you. I get smacked in the head just for lookin’ at you. What do you think is gonna happen if he finds out I’ve been doin’ a whole lot more than lookin’?” Shaking his head, he grimaced. “And on your prom night. Jesus, I’m a fuckin’ dirtbag.”

“Thanks for the self-esteem boost,” I muttered.

“Baby,” he said, turning to look at me. “Bein’ with you is worth winnin’ dirtbag of the year, yeah? Now, shut the fuck up about tellin’ your old man, it ain’t happenin’. Not until you’re at least thirty.”

“Fine.” I sighed, knowing after spending nearly a week with him that it was pointless to keep arguing.

“Good, glad we agree. What you need to be doin’ is gettin’ your own place.”

“Um, don’t you sort of need money to have your own place?”

“Yeah. Get a fuckin’ job.”

“Hello? I start college in the fall. I won’t have time.”

He shook his head. “Spoiled,” he muttered.

Offended, I punched him in the shoulder, earning myself a loud snort. “Ow,” he said mockingly.

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t. Now go make breakfast. I’m fuckin’ hungry.”

“There’s no food, Mr. Bossy. We ate it all.”

“There’s tequila.”

“Tequila isn’t breakfast.”

“Says you.”

• • •

Ripper was happy.

It had been so damn long, he almost hadn’t recognized the light, airy feeling.

Almost.

But then he remembered the way it had felt his first time catching a wave and not falling off his board, or his first ollie where he’d landed upright instead of on his head, or his parents’ twentieth wedding anniversary party during which he’d gotten his first blow job.

Or the first time he’d got on a bike and put the road behind him.

He smiled into his pillow. He was actually looking forward to the future. As long as it included Danny.

Which, at present, was going to be difficult, but…

If she couldn’t afford her own place, he’d help her out. Not sure how she’d explain that to Deuce, but Ripper needed her out of that house and more accessible to him. Maybe if one of her friends roomed with her…

That could work.

They could make this work. Yeah, it was going to suck sneaking around, but it was doable and it wouldn’t be forever. Just ten, maybe twenty years. Or until Deuce was too old and feeble to do anything about it. Or maybe they could just hold out until Deuce kicked it. The dude was getting up there, and in their line of work, no one usually made it to eighty. Except Blue.

“Fuck,” he groaned. He didn’t want Deuce to die. He wanted Deuce to accept him as Danny’s man.

Which wasn’t ever going to happen. Deuce knew all his dirty secrets, including how many bitches he’d fucked and how many lives he’d taken. There was no way he was going to want a man like him with his daughter. It was hypocritical, but Ripper understood it. If he had a daughter, he wouldn’t want her shacking up with some trigger-happy asshole, who’d once made it his goal in life to fuck as many women as he possibly could.

Fuck it. They’d have to sneak around. There wasn’t any other way. Danny was going to have to get her own place, her own car, maybe even move a town over. She could go on a few runs with him, so they could be out in public together somewhere far away from Montana without having to worry about being caught. He’d do what he could to make her happy and keep Deuce from finding out.

“Ripper?”

He flipped onto his back, expecting to find Danny carrying something resembling breakfast. Instead he found her standing just outside his bedroom doorway, trembling and wide-eyed with fear.

“Baby?” he asked, sitting up. “What’s the—”

Danny stumbled forward into the room and Nikki appeared behind, her heavily lined, angry eyes trained on him, the gun in her hand pressed into Danny’s side and…

Everything stopped. Everything. His brain, his breathing, his heart.

“You fuckin’ scumbag asshole,” Nikki hissed. “You’ve been ignoring me, not answering my phone calls, and I’m thinking something’s happened to you! I was actually worried about you!”

Using the gun, she shoved Danny further into the room.

“But instead I find you at home? And with her!”

Again she shoved Danny and his entire body twitched as he fought the urge to leap off his bed and beat Nikki to death.

“Nikki,” he said, trying to keep his voice low and even. “What the fuck are you doin’? Let her go,” he bit out through clenched teeth. “This ain’t what you think.”

Nikki’s eyes went wide. “It ain’t what I think? So you’re not shacked up with Deuce’s fuckin’ daughter?”

“She was just stayin’ over,” he said quietly. “It ain’t like that.”

“Bullshit!” Nikki spat. “You haven’t touched me in months! And now I find Danny in your kitchen, half naked, and you’re tryin’ to tell me it ain’t like that? I heard you callin’ her baby, Ripper! It is like that!”

“So, what’re you gonna do, bitch?” he growled, his patience quickly waning. “You gonna blow a hole in Deuce’s fuckin’ daughter? You do that, you know hell is gonna be rainin’ down on you.”

“I don’t give a fuck!” she yelled. “I’ve put up with your bullshit for how long? Since I was twenty-two years old, Ripper, waiting to be your old lady! And instead, this is what I get in return? You fuckin’ little girls behind my back!”

Fuck. Jesus fucking fuck. He wasn’t just going to kill this bitch, he was going to make it hurt.

“I’ve been fuckin’ girls behind your back since the beginnin’!” he yelled.

“Whores!” she screamed. “You’ve been fuckin’ whores and Danny ain’t no whore! I ain’t stupid!”

He glanced at Danny and his heart constricted. She was terrified. And it was all his fault.

“DON’T LOOK AT HER!” Nikki screamed. “YOU LOOK AT ME! I DESERVE THAT MUCH!”

His eyes shot back to Nikki, whose shaking hand was two seconds away from accidentally blowing a hole in the woman he loved. So he did what he had to do, to get the focus of that gun off Danny and on him.

“You’re fuckin’ crazy, thinkin’ whatever you’re thinkin’. Yeah, Danny ain’t no whore but that don’t mean I give a fuck. She’s hot pussy and, bitch, you’re shot. Fuckin’ used up and lookin’ old.” He shrugged. “Ain’t feelin’ you no more.”

Both women sucked in sharp breaths but he kept his gaze on Nikki and forced out a hard laugh. “Fuckin’ crazy bitches, thinkin’ I give a fuck about either one of you.”

Just as he’d expected, any remaining shred of sanity left inside Nikki fled. Her arm shot forward and…

Ripper leaped off the bed and to the left, hoping to avoid the bullet but he wasn’t fast enough and searing pain sliced through his side. He stumbled sideways, slamming into the wall just as two more shots rang out.

He whipped around, expecting to find Danny shot, or worse, but instead found Nikki crumpled in a heap on the floor, choking as blood gurgled up out of her mouth.

And standing above her was Danny, Nikki’s gun in her hands.