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Her gaze turned wild, and she shook her head without him answering. There was no more he needed to say. She could come up with her own conclusions about how the explosion happened and what happened to him.

"I've done a lot of things in my life, but I would never harm my daughter," he whispered hoarsely.

"Did you love her?" Brooke met his gaze. "My sister?"

He shook his head. "Partied with her at a Havlin—" He coughed. "She came to me." He made a round belly with his hands. "I got a paternity test. Skye's mine."

"I'm not questioning if Skye's your daughter." Brooke pressed her fingers to her temple. "She looks like you."

"She's my life." His voice barely broke above a whisper.

Brooke lifted her chin. He'd underestimated her.

Without her saying anything, he knew that plan B was a failure. She wouldn't take his money, leave Seaglass Cove, and forget about Skye.

Chapter Seventeen

For a man who was at least six feet four inches tall and built like a brick, Maverick was light on his feet.

Brooke sat on the towel in the grass. The extra wind made the air almost chilly despite the sun overhead.

Skye stood in the middle of the yard, holding the spool with both hands as Maverick stopped fifty feet away and held the dragon kite with a long, colorful tail above his head.

"Hold on tightly," shouted Brooke. "He's going to let go, and the kite will go up. Be ready."

"I've got it." Skye tilted her head, squinting up into the cloudless blue sky. "Let go."

Maverick tossed the kite into the air and backpedaled out of the way of the long tail whipping in the wind. Brooke propped her chin on her folded knees and watched him.

He wasn't gazing at the bright sky, trying to see the climbing kite. His focus remained on Skye.

Pleasure erased the almost constant grimace on his face. His hair blew wild around his shoulders as he jogged toward Skye. He was a man enjoying the day with his daughter.

Instead of taking the spool from Skye, Maverick dropped to his knees on the ground beside his daughter and listened to her talk in excitement every time the kite dipped and climbed high above them.

Brooke warmed, exhaling softly. There was a small part of her that was happy for Skye. Every little girl deserves to have a doting and loving father.

She swallowed hard. That's all she'd wanted when she was young and fatherless.

It was never her mother who she dreamed about. Her mother had abandoned her and Janelle. She never missed having a mother figure because she had Grandma. But Janelle—their mother had ruined Janelle's life by walking out on them.

Grandma always claimed Janelle had never recovered from the abandonment. She'd worn her problems on her sleeve and went through life looking for someone to make her feel better.

Instead of someone, she found drugs.

Learning Maverick had hooked up with Janelle at a biker party and ended up getting her pregnant was in the past. Yet, she felt something for a man who went to such depths to raise his child.

She wasn't sure if it was respect or surprise.

Maverick had lulled her to Seaglass Cove under false pretenses and held her hostage in his house. She hugged her legs to her chest. Now, after weeks of living each day worried about him killing her or harming Skye, he throws fifty thousand dollars at her and is willing to let her leave—without Skye.

That's not what she expected from a man who flew a kite with his daughter or listened to her read books before bedtime. It wasn't the man who brought surprises into the house and called a motorcycle club to escort them to the beach.

Maverick confused her.

She'd witnessed the way he looked at her. It wasn't how a man who would hurt her acted. It bothered him to have her in the house. Every time they brushed against each other while passing each other in the hallway, he jerked away as if hurt.

He was aware of the attraction she hated admitting to.

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