Page 100 of Before You Can Blink
I leveled my wife with a glare. “You know exactly why not.” No way in hell was I giving my daughter and her boyfriend carte blanche to fornicate in a cozy little love nest on my land.
“You’re right. We should set them up in Aspen’s room, instead. You know, the one that shares a wall with ours. Thin walls, I might add.”
Digging the heels of my palms into my eye sockets, I muttered a low curse.
“The cabin doesn’t sound so bad after all now, does it?” There was a note of triumph in her tone.
“Why don’t you make sure to stock it with condoms while you’re at it?” I grumbled.
There was a pat on my bicep. “Oh, I didn’t even think of that. Great idea.”
My eyes sprang open in time to see her hustling out of the room.
“I was kidding!” I called after her.
Knowing Daisy, her mind was already working overtime, planning the wedding.
I could only hope that this Mike guy was a dud.
The man my daughter brought home turned out not to be Mike after all, but Mac—short for Macallan—and beyond the name mix-up, he was not at all what I was expecting.
He was charming, rich, and reeked of city life. The direct opposite of the type of guy I thought she would be attracted to.
“Does Aspen seem a little off to you?” I pulled back the covers and climbed into bed.
Oh, and the two of them were lying through their teeth about being a couple.
Daisy pursed her lips, rubbing lotion into the skin of her forearms and hands. “No, I don’t think so.”
My wife might not see it, but I knew something fishy was going on from the start.
The first thing that tipped me off was when Aspen sat stiff as a board the entire two-hour ride home from the airport. The three of us had squeezed onto the bench seat of my vintage pickup—Aspen sandwiched between me and her “beau”—but she kept leaning into my side instead of his,almost as if she was trying to put space between them. On top of that, he made no claiming moves, like a hand on her knee or an arm around her shoulders. If it had been me with a girl I was not only sweet on but dating, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands to myself, her father’s presence be damned.
But it wasn’t until they shared a kiss under the mistletoe—at my ma’s insistence, shocker—that I realized it wasn’t completely fake forhim. Macallan Blaze, heir to a multibillion-dollar hotel conglomerate, had feelings for my daughter. And the way she responded to that kiss, spending the next hour or so dazed as a result, betrayed that there was a spark between them.
As a father, I should be thrilled. This was the kind of man who could take care of my daughter in the way she deserved. She would never want for anything, would never struggle the way her mother and I had.
But on the flip side, his life and his family business were in California. Bright lights and big city life were Aspen’s future if she built a life with Mac. Rust Canyon would become a distant memory. My baby girl would be gone forever, all hopes of a permanent return dashed.
I’d always imagined how it must’ve felt for Daisy’s father when I stole her away, but now I truly understood. A piece of my heart, an integral part of my soul, would be entrusted to another for safekeeping. All I could do was pray he cherished her the way I always had, the way she deserved.
“What are you doing out here in the cold all alone?” Daisy’s voice floated from the open back door to the house.
Seated on a chair on the deck, I lifted a glass tumbler, swirling the amber liquid inside. “Kid had a bottle of the good stuff delivered.” Mac had explained he’d been named after the expensive scotch, and when he heard I’d never sampled it, he had taken it upon himself to have a bottle sent to the ranch as a gift.
Daisy hummed her interest, so I patted my thigh. “Come here and have a taste.”
Soft footsteps sounded from behind me as she made her way across the deck before settling onto my lap. Automatically, her head dropped to my shoulder, and she sighed.
I handed over my glass, and she took a sip. Smacking her lips, she remarked, “Ooh, that’s smooth.”
“Sure is,” I agreed.
Stroking down the length of Daisy’s long brown hair, now mostly gray, I let the action soothe my racing mind after having a heart-to-heart with my daughter’s fake-boyfriend-who-wished-he-was-more.
Against the top of my wife’s head, I said, “He’s in love with her.”
Craning her neck, she looked up at me. “Of course he is. What’s not to love?”
