Page 134 of Beware of Dog

He secretly liked when Cass called him by his full, given name. It showed that she knew him, that she had pried the biker lid off the tin and liked what she found beneath. It was an intimacy with her…and one he didn’t feel like granting to this smug asshole.

“You’re a shit dad,” he said, more aggressively than he’d intended. “To all your kids. They love you, and you disappoint them over and over again. If you were a real dad then, yeah, maybe I’d sit here and take your threats, let you wave a shotgun at me, tell me I’m no good for her. But you’re not around. Ever. You don’t get to swoop in and pass judgement on me when I’m here, day in and day out, keeping her safe, trying to make her happy. Fuck you for playing the dad card now, when it’s too late.”

Devin rocked his head side to side, gaze fixed on the porch ceiling, absorbing the words. “Alright,” he said, and made eye contact again, face calm, eyes sparking. “May I speaknow?”

Shep spread his arms.Go ahead.

Devin’s grin widened, tugging hard to one side, and Shep wasn’t the sort of guy who admired other guys, okay? But there was something very old school Steve McQueen about that grin that made it easy to understand why ten women had let the man impregnate them.

“Okay, then, Shep,” Devin said. “Before you jumped down my throat, I was going to thank you.”

“Oh.” Shep felt his face go slack with surprise. “Uh…”

“Yeah. Women I understand. To an extent. But daughters? Minefields. Raven’s always been very self-possessed, very driven. She walks the straight-and-narrow that one. Too much. I was relieved she married a real man instead of some model or photographer or wanker in her industry. But Cass is my willful one. If she was a boy, I’d have trained her up like Charlie myself. Let Abe spend a few years molding her and then taken her across the globe with me.”

“You don’t take any of your kids ‘across the globe’ with you, not unless Ghost asks you to.”

Devin sighed. “Right you are. Part of that whole ‘shit dad’ thing, eh? My point is: she’s headstrong. I don’t understand her, quite honestly. I worry about her. I know her sister worries about her. Butyou.” He pointed at him. “You’ve figured out the balance, mate. Watch her, guide her, but don’t get in her way when she needs to run free.”

“She’s not a wild horse.”

“Eh.” He see-sawed his hand just as Fox had done, in partial disagreement. Then he settled, and he smiled. A true smile, or a perfect facsimile of one. “What I wanted to say is, I know the boys are giving you holy hell. I suppose that’s their job. She’s still a baby to them, but I know you don’t see her that way.”

Shep blinked. “No.” She washisbaby, but in an entirely different, adult sort of way.

Devin continued, “I still travel. I still get calls now and then, old friends needing favors. But I’m based in Tennessee. By God, those little girls are gonna call me ‘grandpa.’” He chuckled. “But as far as being a father goes: I’ll be as much of one as they’ll let me, but I won’t try to tell them what to do.” He nodded toward Shep. “You’rethe man in Cassandra’s life. You have been for a while. And I thank you for that. For loving her. I hope you’re good to her in bed.”

Shep made a face, but Devin was undeterred.

“That you make it fun for her, yeah? Give her what she wants. I have the sense that girl wantsa lot.” His grin turned wicked. “All my kiddos inherited my…appetites, shall we say.”

“Ugh.”

“And I hope,” he went on, serious again, “that you’ll give her babies if she wants them. I don’t have to tell you to keep her safe, because I know you do. And I don’t have to ask if you love her, because I know that, too.”

He reached into his back pocket, came out with his phone, and pulled up a photo. Turned the screen so Shep could see it.

He might as well have slapped him.

It was one of the selfies Cass had insisted on taking the night after he told Raven about them, and they went over to the penthouse apartment for dinner. When they ate pizza on Raven and Toly’s bed while the baby slept, and Cass’s eyes had been red-rimmed from the good kind of tears, her sister loving and accepting of the direction of her heart. He’d been on his second or third whiskey, Cass stealing sips, and she’d pressed their faces together.

Devin reached up and scrolled through a sequence of photos, and in the last one, Shep had turned his head, and kissed her cheek, and Cass was beaming. He was startled by his own face, by the raw, unguarded emotion in it; by how exquisitely happy Cass looked, like she’d won the lottery.

He swallowed, and found a lump in his throat.

Devin pulled the phone back, and said, scrolling, “Cass sent me these, along with a text…ah. Here it is. She said, ‘Hi, Dad. I know Raven called you about me getting married. I am marrying, and I’m marrying Shep, who you already know, so I won’t bother with all the boring details.’” His mouth hitched up at the corners as he read, tickled by Cass’s word choice. “‘Before you overreact, I want to tell you how much I love him. I want to tell you how special he is, and how much he needs to be loved.He’s a good man, and he looks after me better than anyone, and I want to be able to look after him in all the ways that I can. He loves me, too. I know he does, because he tells me so, and because I can see that he does, in all the little ways that are most important. Please be kind to him, Daddy. He’s more than earned it.’”

Devin gazed at the phone a moment longer, then nodded to himself, blacked the screen, and slipped it back into his pocket. “Right then,” he said, face creased with smile lines. “Our girl wants us to get along. She wants me to treat you with kindness, so that’s what I intend to do.”

He stuck his hand out, and it was a friendly gesture, this time. “Hi. I’ve no idea what my real name is, if I ever had one, but I’ve been Devin Green for forty-some-odd years now. It’s suited well enough.”

Shep was still reeling from the text. Simple words, and a truth he’d already known, but hearing the way Cass had strung it all together for her father had left his sinuses stinging. He accepted the handshake. “Frank Shepherd. I’m gonna marry your daughter.”

Devin’s smile lines deepened. “Good. I think that’s what she wants.”

~*~

“Home sweet home.”

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