Page 84 of Unbreakable Love

I lifted my arms out to my side. “Am I dressed okay?”

Given she was insisting on teaching me how to ride a horse, I’d dressed in jeans and knee-high leather boots that probably wouldn’t protect my toes from the cold but would hopefully help with a horse. I had on a long sweater that covered my butt and had a high, cowl-neck collar. It was light pink and warm. The sun was shining, but it was only going to be in the forties by mid-day, so I had on my coat, but it was unzipped and open.

“You look great,” she exclaimed. “Come on. Daddy’s waiting for us!”

She skipped to me, took my hand, dragged me off my porch, and bolted into a sprint once we reached the driveway. I jogged along with her, her laughter and excitement a heady thing that could lift the darkest clouds from someone’s soul.

Josie was a gift, that was for sure, and I was almost as excited to spend the day with her as I was Gavin.

Who was standing at the driver’s side door to his truck, one booted foot kicked over the other, smiling at us as I chased Josie directly to him.

He wore jeans that fell over the boots and a thick, flannel shirt that looked to be more coat than shirt with a gray Henley beneath. He’d shaven, jaw perfectly smooth, and as we jogged up the driveway, he lifted his gorgeous, sexy smile and aimed it right at me.

“Happy birthday,” he said, and a shiver of excitement trailed down my spine.

This was the best birthday ever, and it’d barely begun.

“Thank you,” I breathed, breathless from both him and the quick jaunt I’d taken to get to him.

He opened Josie’s door, and she climbed on in.

“I can’t wait for this. This is going to be the best day ever,” she declared and started buckling into her booster seat.

Gavin shut the door and seared me with a heated look. “I agree.”

I trembled in my boots as I faced him. “It already is, I think.”

“Come on.” He walked around the front of his truck and opened my door, held it there while I climbed in, and didn’t shut it until I was buckled.

He leaned in, and I caught a whiff of spice and masculine scent that made me lick my lips and my breath turn erratic. “You good back there, munchkin?”

“Ready to roll,” Josie chirped.

He leaned back, and with his hand not holding the door, brushed it over the top of my thigh, barely grazing my skin and my hands in my lap.

“You good?”

I swallowed thickly. “Yup.”

He smirked like he’d won something, and maybe he had. It’d been a week of late-night kisses and laughter and phone calls. We texted throughout the day, and he always called at night. I didn’t go over to his house every night, but most of them, but I didn’t see him last night. He said he had to help Dalton at the ranch.

The wait was worth last night’s missed kisses because he looked more handsome, more relaxed and excited this morning than I’d seen him yet.

Like he had a secret. I suppose we did.

He pulled out of the driveway, throwing his arm over the back of my headrest in that sexy, manly way only men could somehow pull off, and when he put the truck in park, his hand brushed along my hair before returning to the steering wheel.

I turned to him, arched brows in question.

“Seeing what I can get away with,” he whispered, looking at the road, but it was like he’d felt my question.

“You’re a tease,” I whispered back and turned to Josie in the back seat. “Did you have fun last night?”

“I always have fun at Grandma’s. And I get to play with Goldie now, which makes it funner.”

“Was Landon there, too?”

She was a constant source of entertainment and information, so I knew when Cameron got hurt, his wife Emily and son Landon had been at the house. Grandpa Kelley bought Goldie for Landon but wasn’t going to let the puppy go stay with them until he was sure the dog was well trained, so it didn’t add work to Emily, who was expecting her second child. What she didn’t know was that at night, Gavin told me all about his family. I’d gotten the crash course in the Kelley family from Faye and Dolly, but Gavin was an open book.

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