Page 11 of Daddy's Secret (Stonebridge Daddies 3)

“For me?”

“You know someone else whose dream car was a blue Wrangler?”

I didn’t even realize he’d been paying attention. I’d mentioned it to Ashley a few times before she died, and I might have said something in passing to him once since then. Another wave of emotion flooded me as I realized he remembered what I said and followed through in a huge way.

“Wow.” I shook my head in disbelief. “I’ve been saving up for one, but I can’t afford it yet. I can pay you back in installments. I’ll give you what I have as a down payment–”

“It’s a gift, baby.” He interjected. He tossed his beer into the recycle bin and cleared his throat. “A late graduation gift and thank you gift.”

My heart skipped when he called me baby. He’d used the endearment when I was younger, but it had been years, and now it felt very different when he said it.

“Thank you, gift?” I knew I sounded dense, repeating what he was constantly saying, but I was shocked. “For what?”

Hunter scratched the edge of his beard and stood in front of me.

“For everything. For being the sister, Ashley never had, for starters. You made her happier than anything in the world. Also, for sticking with me and taking care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself. When I saw it on the used car lot on my way home from a site last month, I knew I couldn’t pass it up.”

Tears began to fall. It was the most thoughtful and generous thing anyone had ever given me.

“It’s too much,” I said, my voice quiet from the overwhelming emotions I was trying to manage. “It’s–”

He placed his thumb on my lips to silence me, and I had to force myself to stay present as the memory of his thumb in my mouth as he ate me out pushed its way forward like a battering ram.

“It’s. A. Gift.”

He wiped away the tears that skipped down my cheek, then pulled me against him. His arms and heart beating in his muscled chest were comforting and arousing. Yet, I wanted to stay right here forever, and I wanted to burst free of his embrace and tear off our clothes.

Unable to decipher which feeling was stronger, I teased him, “How did you even get it home? I didn’t think they let wasted; emotional messes drive off the lot in new cars.”

He tipped my chin up, and I was glad to see him smirking at me.

“I can keep it together. When I need to.”

I huffed a small laugh, then wiped my eyes free of the remaining tears. “I bet you can. Sometimes I think you only fall apart, so I’ll come put you back together.”

The smirk faded, and his eyes shone with the same intensity they had earlier, right before he kissed me in the hallway. He didn’t answer, and I wondered if I hit a nerve. My heart pounded painfully against my ribs as he bent down, lips to my ear.

“Whatever it takes to see you,” he whispered. “And now that I have you, I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you.”

He pulled away before I had the chance to react, and I nearly collapsed onto the concrete in the absence of his arms. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a keychain. Dangling from the end was the key to my new Jeep.

Like a kid on Christmas, I was so excited that I grabbed it from him without any kind of decorum. The primary pendant was a cheesy Del Mar souvenir keychain with the letter “B” carved into a surfboard. There were also frequent shopper cards to the local grocery stores and the car wash, but the largest one was the one that made the tears start fresh. Hunter had given me a custom keychain with a picture of Ashley and me, which read In Loving Memory of Ashley–My Forever BFF.

The wood was painted the same blue as my Jeep, but the engraved letters were the coral color Ashley saw as her signature. It was us. Me and her.

“Helado Frio is back on the beach,” he said, referring to the ice cream stand that had moved inland for a few years. “You should take your new car out for a spin and get some. I have to finish some work I didn’t do earlier since I was a bit distracted.”

We shared a secretive smile that brought about a new wave of guilt as I held Ashley’s picture in my hand. “It’s half past six now. Be back around eight. I’m making you dinner.”

My jaw dropped. Hunter didn’t cook. His diet contained only three food groups: takeout, scrambled eggs when he couldn’t get takeout, and alcohol.

“Okay,” I said, a soaring feeling taking over my chest. I wrapped my arms around his neck in a big hug, then turned to my new Jeep and climbed in. As I pulled out of the garage and onto the main road, I looked at Hunter in the rearview mirror, feeling strangely hopeful. Maybe, despite every reason for it to go wrong, this could be so good for him–for both of us.

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