Page 73 of Rowdy Hearts

Daisy slapped a hand on my chest, hard enough to sting. “Because you’re worse than a teenager. You eat all our food and drink all our beer and make my husband get banished to the couch because he ate too many damn hot wings and gets indigestion that annoys the crap out of both of us.”

I laughed. “That was a good night.”

Daisy gave me a look. “Not for him, it wasn’t.”

I just shook my head because, yeah, Daisy had condemnedDerek and me to sleeping together in the guest room. I’d had too many beers to drive home, and the guest bedroom would’ve been mine alone if Derek hadn’t gotten the worst case of indigestion. We’d laughed practically all night, like teenagers and woke up with matching hangovers.

“Not for me, either, hon.”

“You deserved whatever you got that night, Rowdy.”

Tressy watched the interplay, the discomfort I’d seen a little earlier disappearing as her smile made its return.

“Are you sure?” Tressy asked. “I know you have a game tonight, and I don’t want to interfere with?—

“Oh, gosh, no.” Daisy waved that thought away with her hand. “Actually, it’ll be good for Mandy. She sometimes gets the short end of the deal. She’s six years younger than her older sister, and they fight like cats and dogs sometimes. You’d be doing me a favor.”

Tressy bit into her bottom lip, sliding me a quick glance before smiling back at Daisy. “If you really don’t mind…”

The two little girls began to giggle and jump up and down, holding hands.

“Krista, honey, you need to be good.”

“I will, Mommy. Bye!”

Krista didn’t look back as she and Mandy linked hands and took off across the room to Derek, while Daisy gave Tressy a smile that was clearly grateful.

“Thank you. Mandy doesn’t make friends easily and she’s really taken with Krista. Your daughter is a sweetheart.”

“Thanks. She doesn’t get to do a lot of playdates at home. I work and there aren’t a lot of kids her age in our building?—”

“They’ll have a great time.” Daisy reached out and squeezed Tressy’s hand. “We have a big backyard and a playset that doesn’t get used nearly enough. We’ll bring her to the game with us, if that’s okay with you?”

My brain was already calculating how many hours I’d have alone with Tressy. And I was liking that math.

After a second, Tressy nodded. “Sure, that would be great. Thanks again, Daisy.”

“Oh, no problem at all.”

Tressy waved again to Krista, who barely glanced back as she and Mandy headed for the door hand-in-hand with Daisy and Derek, then stared at the door for several long seconds before turning back to me.

“Derek’s one of my oldest friends from school,” I assured her. “He and Daisy were childhood sweethearts who had their first kid when they were twenty. There are a lot of good people in this town, but those two are great.”

I wanted to reassure her that St. David was safe. That the people here were some of the best in the world. She could find a haven here, if she wanted one. Because she’d been running from something. And she still hadn’t told me what. But now we had the entire day to ourselves. And while I wanted to spend some of it alone and naked, I didn’t want her to think that’s all I wanted.

“So since we have some time on our hands, you wanna see something cool?”

Her expression lightened in a way that made me grin, because I knew exactly what she was thinking.

Her brows rose, challenging. “I think I saw a lot of those cool things last night. What else is there?”

“I think you’ll be surprised how much more there is to see. Are you ready to get out of here?”

She paused. “You’re sure Krista will be okay?”

“Cross my heart.” I made an X over my chest and gave her the biggest smile, which served the purpose of making her laugh.

“You’re dangerous, Rowdy Lawrence.”

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