Page 18 of Defending Casey

“And now,” he warned Hale with a simple nod and a straightforward look, “there are two hearts you’d be breaking, and I can’t let that kind of affront stand, if you understand what I’m saying.”

Hale certainly did. “I understand, sir. And the last thing I want to do is hurt Casey or our daughter.”

The words rang in his head. ‘Our daughter.’ ‘Our daughter.’

Nothing had ever sounded so sweet except when Casey had told him she loved him.

As her father walked off toward his truck, Hale looked at Casey and wondered what it would take to get her to say those words to him again.

He’d find out.

And he’d make it happen, because he still loved Casey Jones and had made it his next mission to get her to fall back in love with him and make her his wife.

As the truck started up, Hale smiled at Casey and asked her the all-important question on the tip of his tongue. “Well, where do we go from here?”

He could tell she was at a loss for words. Her smile quivered a little, but not from tears, which he was grateful for. “I… I don’t know.”

Taking the opening as his first chance to start making things right between them, he held out his hand to her and lord have mercy she put her hand in his.

“I think we should go shopping,” he suggested and saw the furrow of confusion crease the smooth skin between her brows. “I need a car seat for my truck.”

The smile Casey gave him in return made him swell up with pride and… well, other things. But first things first, he had to show Casey that he wasn’t shying away from being a father.

“Well, if you want to get one, we’ll probably have to drive into Colorado Springs. Do you have the time?”

He nodded right away. He didn’t have to think about the answer to that. “I’ve got some time on my hands before I take an assignment. My boss knows that I need some time to settle in.”

“Well,” she squeezed his hand gently, “I think it will be good for us to take that drive. Maybe,” she swallowed, and he saw the way the muscles in her throat moved, “it will give us some time to talk. Get to know each other again.”

He had to pull his gaze away from the sight of her sun-goldened skin and the memory of what it felt like to brush his lips against that sensitive column.

“I think that sounds like the best way to spend my day. Do you mind if we take my truck?”

Her eyes widened a little at the suggestion. “It’s a newer model than the one you had before.”

He nodded. Happy that she remembered. “The other one still had some miles left on it but knowing that I would probably be driving a bit for my job, I wanted to get something more reliable.” They started to walk toward his truck. “But come to think of it,” he explained, “I did have a lot of good memories of that truck…”

He heard her soft laughter and liked the way their arms swung slightly between them as they walked.

“And you, Casey. I remember all of the good times we had in that truck.”

Her blush gave her cheeks a rosy glow that he wanted to kiss, but he held back.

He wasn’t stupid enough to think that what had gone wrong between them could be fixed with a few heated memories and the sexual tension he could feel between them. Hale knew they had some real work ahead of them.

They were going to have to do a lot of talking and find out where things had gone careening off the path they had been on previously.

The rest, well, he was going to put some thought into it, and maybe call in some reinforcements.

---