Page 5 of Daddy's Friend’s Mate

“When does Steven think?” The retort might have been sour. Because I might have been feeling sour about how my best friend bit the dust.

And I had no idea until now.

I rested the mouth of the beer bottle on my bottle lip. “Did you bury him already?”

“Cremated in a private ceremony.” She reached into her pocket and produced a small black velvet bag. It likely only held an ounce or two, not much. She extended it to me. “He wanted you to have a piece of him.”

My right eye twitched. The lids tapped together rapidly as the surrounding skin vibrated uncontrollably. Nothing was more stressful than seeing Steven—than seeing the guy that watched my daughter during long missions—reduced to a pile of ash in a tiny bag.

I reached for it. I held the cloth between my forefinger and thumb, wondering how something so innocuous could hold so much meaning. Even more, I wondered how something so light could hold so much weight. In this bag was a piece of my friend, a portion of the guy who sat with me during those nights when the war had kept me awake.

What part of him did I get? His ear? His nose? His hands adept at any magical spell, modern or ancient?

I bowed my head forward in reverence, keeping my eyes on the bag. “You know, there was one night Steven found me drunk on the strip.”

Kiara perked up. “I don’t remember you mentioning that.”

I huffed in her direction, kind of amused, sort of in disbelief. “You were just ten at the time. You didn’t know better.”

“Dad, you always say that.”

“You always say that too.”

She swallowed a gulp of beer loudly. “Ugh, old man.”

“Freeloader.”

She grinned. “Stop teasing me and tell us the story, old man.”

I chortled. “I was piss drunk, rattling on about your mother—” I gestured to my daughter and then glanced at Regina. “—eh, I don’t know if you know.”

Regina nodded solemnly. “I know.”

“I don’t remember a lot from that time.” I scratched the trimmed beard on my face. “He took me in. Thankfully, he found Kiara at home asleep. But I was too stupid to manage anything. He sobered me up, let me sleep, and took you girls to school.”

Kiara touched my forearm. “That school in Sumner was the worst.”

Regina laughed. “They hated us there.”

I frowned. “Wait a second, I don’t remember anybody hating you girls. I just remember that—”

Kiara shook my arm playfully. “Don’t get worked up. We still have to figure out the box.”

I sighed. Because my daughter was right. Sumner was an old memory that came up on rare occasions like tonight. While that was only five years ago, it felt much longer than that. So many things have happened since then.

Like Steven pushing up daisies.

I shrugged my left shoulder, took a swig of beer, and heaved another sigh. “Steven and I met in Spartanburg during a vampire-wolf war meeting with one of the South’s best wolf captains, Captain Milligan. Since the vampires used so much magic, the wolves decided to do the same.”

Regina raised her beer. “Papa believed in making things even. He believed in justice.”

“Damn right, he did.” I tapped her beer with my bottle and then took a long swig. She joined me, her movements synchronizing with near perfection as we timed our drink to match.

I cleared my throat after I finished the beer and set it on the table at the same time as Regina. To my left, my daughter appeared frozen or stunned. Maybe it was the fact that I was talking so openly about things I never usually discussed. Perhaps it was the beer.

“Anyway, we met. We bonded. You girls were about five at the time.” I rubbed my knee idly, feeling the leftover grease on my jeans from working on the tractor earlier. “From there, we moved to Sumner. Then, to Greenville. Then to Beaufort.” My gaze slid over to Regina. “Well, you and your papa stayed in Greenville.”

She nodded. “Which is where the house still stands.” Her brows furrowed together, locked with worry. “Goddess, I don’t even know what to do with that thing. It’s too much space for me.”

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