Page 70 of Outlaw

“I bet they are,” he replied.

“I wish I could have anotha one,” she said, sounding so forlorn that I wondered if I should get the kid into acting lessons. She had a natural talent.

“One is e—”

“You can have as many as you want,” Linc told her, cutting me off.

Tensing, I clasped my hands in my lap and glanced over at him.

His eyes went from Stevie, who quickly jumped up off the seat to go over and pick out another cupcake, to me. He had knownthat I was about to tell her that one was enough. If she ate more sweets, she would be wild, then have a sugar crash, which could get ugly.

He raised his eyebrows at me in a challenge. “What? I missed four years of letting her eat cupcakes. I’m making up for all the lost time.” The taunt and accusation in his tone were clear to everyone.

Going inside and hiding for the rest of this trip wasn’t an option, although I was sure he would be thrilled if I disappeared. I dropped my gaze to my hands and said nothing. Making eye contact with anyone right now would likely make the lump in my throat turn into watery eyes.

I took a deep breath in and let it out. I had survived worse things than this. It seemed Linc was going to take jabs at me and humiliate me while we were here. I needed to toughen up and deal with it. I’d made the mistake of letting the man screw me again, which seemed to only make my presence even more distasteful to him than it already had been.

Aspen stepped forward and bent her knees as she lowered herself to Stevie’s height. She smiled at Stevie, then peered over the foods on the table. “Hmm,” she said, then looked back at Stevie as she picked up some seafood wrapped in bacon. Lobster perhaps. “You know, when I eat too much sugar, it makes my tummy hurt, and I get sad. Sometimes, it even makes me cry,” she told her with a serious expression along the lines of a wide-eyed Snow White. She held up the item in her hand. “Also, bacon is my very favorite. I much prefer it. And it doesn’t give me a stomachache.” She scrunched her nose at the last part.

Stevie studied her closely, then looked at the bacon appetizer as if she was debating the truth in this.

“I like bacon too,” Stevie admitted. “And I don’t like stomachaches.”

Aspen shook her head. “Oh no, those are the worst. I don’t likethem at all.”

Stevie glanced over at the tray where the bacon-wrapped seafood items were. “I think I want one of these,” she said firmly, then reached for the stick that it was on and picked it up.

“That’s a very good choice,” Aspen said with a nod, then took a bite of hers before standing up.

Her gaze swung over to me, and a soft smile touched her lips.

If she wasn’t already married to Levi, I might have proposed. She was going to make an excellent mother.

Thirty-Two

Linc

“Your daughter-in-law thinks you’re a dick,” Levi said as he closed the door to Garrett’s office and glanced over at me.

“Because he is,” Garrett drawled, then put the cigar back in his mouth.

Shaking his head in disgust, Levi walked over to the bar. “I get you hate Branwen. Damn, we all got that message. You made your disdain for her clear today. If you said another word to or about her at dinner, I thought Aspen was going to throw her drink in your face.”

If they had all stopped acting as if she were important, then I’d not have kept on. But the more the other women drew her into their inner circle, like she was one of them when she sure as hell was not, the worse my annoyance with her grew.

Instead of responding, I shrugged and pulled in the smoke from the cigar to linger in my mouth for a moment beforereleasing it.

Levi brought his glass of whiskey over to the caramel-colored leather sofa and sat down. “Stevie might be young, but the way you treat her mother isn’t going to be missed by her. Sure, this is all new, and you’re new. She seems happy with this situation, but the more you humiliate and talk down to her mom, she’s going to turn against you.”

He took a drink, looking at me the entire time. “I was a boy. It was different. Even when I hated you for the shit you did to Mom, you were my dad. I wanted this life. We had more than just a father-son relationship. We had the family. It gave us a different bond.

“Stevie is a little girl, and that’s her momma. You don’t get a stronger bond. Hell, look at Fawn and Gypsy. That’s what they will grow up to be like. You think she will love you and want you in her life if you hurt her momma?”

Why the fuck was I getting a lecture from my son on relationships and parenting? Did him being married now make him a goddamn expert? Not all women were like Aspen.

“Just so you are clear on something,” I began, holding the cigar between my fingers, “the shit with your mom wasn’t all me. You’re a grown-ass man now, so understand that, although I’m glad you were born, Maggie trapped me with the pregnancy. She found out I had fucked around, and I wouldn’t do the exclusive shit with her, so she stopped taking her birth control, knowing if she was knocked up, she’d be able to keep me. Our marriage was doomed from day one.

“As for Branwen, after this year is up, I am moving her into a place in town, and Stevie is going to come stay with me on alternating weeks. She won’t see her mother and me together.”

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