Page 5 of Wicked Wishes
Knowing she is locked up safe at home—from me and anyone else—I head back home. In the darkness of my empty house, I debate the lone thought that has been repeating like a neon sign blinking in my brain. And before I climb into bed, I know my mind is made up. Watching her with that baby tonight did me in—I am a good man, who means what I say to people but.... I can’t help what I feel or what I want.
I want the sexy babysitter next door—and now I have a terrible, wicked idea how to get her.
Chapter Four
Hanna
Halloween is the most magical time of the year if I you ask me.
Beside the longer nights, the darker skies, the smell of fire pits burning in the dark, and the promise of scary movies and sweet treats, the history of it just fascinates me. Growing up with dark and detached parents—though I knew they loved me in the best way they knew how—I was always drawn to darker things.
Going to haunted houses, watching scary movies, or night-time escapades through spooky spots in Harmony Hollow scream fall fun to me. Now I enjoy the sheer horror of falling for the hot widower down the road who turns me on till it hurts just to shut me down. No matter what, I always go back for more. Like a kid knocking on a door asking for treats.
Today Harley Lane stands at my doorstep looking like a treat.
Only as I gape up at him, something sour burns on my tongue.
“You...area father?” I tilt my head until I swear it will twist off, eyes huge, and jaw slack.
Rubbing at the back of his neck, he cocks his head too, nodding just once. I stumble back from him, shocked. Two months I have been flirting with the badass biker babe down the street—and getting gently rebuffed. I thought it was because he was still in mourning or just decided to live out the rest of his life alone. Both sad truths, I thought.
Now I wonder if he has just room enough in his broken heart for his child.
“Spends the summer with my wife’s parents over in Paris Isle,” he clears his throat and steps into my house, moving too close for comfort, “I never thought...now I realize it looks as if I was hiding something. I would never hide my daughter but when she is gone and I am alone, sometimes it hurts a little less and that makes me a bastard, so I don’t talk about it. I am not making any sense,” he growls, lacing his hands behind his head and tipping it back as he sighs.
Only to me, he makes perfect sense and my heart aches for him.
My father resented me after we lost my mother, and I knew it. My mother was fragile and sweet, too sweet for this earth, I say. A woman who wanted a man who could never give her what she needed. My father could give her diamonds and pretty promises, but never the sweet and soft parts of him she wanted most. Mother swallowed her broken heart with a handful of oxy, and father hated me for it—even though he was the one who drove her to it.
Since I lost her, I struggled with my own sweet and soft parts, not wanting to give them away and risk being ruined like she was.
“You are not her,”Mia reminded me when I first came home.
We were signing away my father’s house and a chunk of his assets to Gabe Holmes and Brady Lowe. I gave them my family home to renovate the gothic mansion into something good. Instead of an empty reminder of my parents and their doomed romance, now it is a beautiful bed and breakfast. Newlyweds from Harmony Hollow, Crystal Cove, and even Paris Isle, come to celebrate their new love there. At last, something beautiful fills a place once wrecked by ugliness.
And maybe I am not my mother, who was so fragile and sought attention and constant validation that she was loved. ButI wantto be loved. I never gave it much thought until I came home and started to wonder what came next for me. Romance had never been on my radar really. Until I found Harley and I started to believe even if it is scary, romance might be worth the destruction.
Looking at him now, I know it is. I am more certain of that fact than ever before. His hurt is so deep and so raw that he wears it in his eyes and in his hands. He works on that bike—a finely tuned machine—because he wants to fix whatever he can. He cannot fix the past—losing his wife, the life they had planned out, and becoming a single parent. But he does not have to.
“And now...you want me to babysit her?” I repeat what he asked after he knocked on my door today.
It is midday on a brisk and sunny Saturday. I ought to be writing a blog about a new fall pumpkin spice skincare line I am partnered with. Last night being in close quarters with him drove me mad, so my laptop sits open at the counter, a blank page waiting to be filled. Pumpkin spice goodies litter the counter but my place smells like buttercream and lemon because I spent the morning baking.
Making treats reminds me of my mother. Growing up, we would bake together all the time. Cookies and crumpets, candied confections, and decadent cakes. Later I realized we baked so often to calm her down. To talk her off a ledge whenever she was fighting with my philandering father.
Now baking is my love language—and why I bake treats for Harley so often.
“Yeah,” his voice is raspy, and I swear he even flushes beneath his thick beard, “maybe once or twice a week? Or if I have a job that takes me over to Crystal Cove. She uh...she likes to bake, too. And she likes dark stuff, like you do. Halloween and scary things, sad music, things I don’t understand. I thought you might be.... maybe you might save her from being so sad.”
Looking up at this beautifully tortured man, tears fill my eyes. I know why I want him so badly. Without knowing all the chapters of his story, I saw the heart in his story. That very first day I went over, sat down on his toolbox, and decided I liked him, I could see a future with him. A future that I have not been able to shake since. And now I know he was not just a devoted and adoring husband, but a loving and caring father.
Hell, maybe I have a daddy complex but what is wrong with that? He is one smoking hot daddy.
“Oh, Harley,” I husk, looking away so he doesn’t see me falling apart for him, “of course. I would love to meet your little girl. And babysit if you genuinely want me to.”
His big body moves close, and my eyes flutter closed. He does not touch me, but his hands hover over my hips. He lowers his head, and his brow touches mine and our breathing picks up, the air between us electric. His beard is rough at my throat, and I gasp when he chuckles, that sound sending heat sizzling right to my center.
“I want you to,” his voice is thick as he breathes the words against my mouth, “tonight can you...can you come out to pizza with us? Get to know her and... I mean not like a....not likea date.”
