Page 61 of Thornhill Road

I had so many questions—questions I knew I couldn’t ask in the moment.

Mustang was still calming down, and the last thing I wanted to do was poke the bear.

We were mostly silent as we rode back to his house. It wasn’t until we pulled into the driveway that I got a proper look at it.

We’d been in such a rush before, I was too distracted to notice the big, ranch style home on a spacious lot. He had a small deck that extended off his front porch. There was a built-in bench and two, cushioned Adirondack chairs in front of two large windows on the center of the house.

We pulled into his garage and Mustang extracted his hand from mine. I looked over at him just as he murmured, “Out, sugar.”

I wassugaragain, and I knew that meant he was coming back to himself.

We both got out and Mustang walked around the back of his truck to the rear passenger door. He had Mary-Kate propped against his chest in short order. I watched her cling to his neck with her temple pressed against his, and I saw how connected with one another they were. It wasn’t just Mustang in his adult wisdom with the knowledge of his child—it was Mary-Kate, in her innocence, in tune with her father.

He caught my hand with his free one, and I trailed behind them into the house.

The door from the garage opened into a generous open floor plan. The kitchen and dining area were right in front of us, and his living room was toward the front of the house. As he led me into the belly of the kitchen, we passed a sliding glass door off the back of the house, and I glimpsed his screened-in porch and an absolutely gorgeous view.

He sat Mary-Kate down on the island counter and let go of my hand on his way to the fridge.

“Daddy, are you bleeding?” she asked, sounding worried.

He pulled a carton of strawberries out of the fridge with his unaffected hand, then paused to look down at his other—as if for the first time.

“Babe, let me help,” I insisted, reaching for the fruit. “You need to ice that. Just, uh, point me in the direction of a cutting board.”

I glanced around the room. He had about a million cabinets and drawers. I wondered if he’d managed to fill them all. If so, I was sure he was roughing it in my kitchen.

“Second drawer down. Right side of the stove,” he told me. “Knives are in the block. I cut ‘em in half.”

“Got it,” I assured him as I went about my task.

I heard him open up his freezer drawer and glanced back at him as he took out a bag of peas and unceremoniously plopped them over his knuckles. This was apparently all the attention he was going to give his hand, as he then went straight to the tall cabinet next to the fridge and pulled out a container of goldfish. I rinsed strawberries and listened as he poured out a few into a bowl.

“More, daddy!” Mary-Kate insisted on a giggle.

“We’ll see about that. You eat those and your strawberries first.”

After I’d halved a few, I carried the cutting board over to the island. Mary-Kate hummed her delight and immediately reached for one.

“Thank you,” she said politely.

“You’re welcome.”

Mustang popped a strawberry in his mouth too, eliciting a gasp from his little one.

“Hey!”

Smiling, he muttered, “You can share, princess.”

“Yeah, okay,” she conceded, kicking her feet as she reached for another berry. “You can have one, too,” she told me.

“Oh, thank you. That’s so nice of you.”

As I accepted her offer, Mustang pulled his phone from his pocket. He tapped the screen a few times, and Mary-Kate and I both watched him as he brought the device to his ear and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Yeah,” he said, answering a question we couldn’t hear. “Need to be at the bar tonight. Can she stay at your place?”

Uninterested in her father’s conversation, Mary-Kate grabbed a goldfish, then looked at me and said, “You’re pretty. How come I never met you before?”

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