Page 70 of Ugly Duckling
Gunner snorted and lifted his girl. “You got a good arm on you, my girl.”
“Stwong.” She flexed her little girl muscles.
“Yes, you are,” he teased. “Are you almost done?”
“Actually, just got started.” I flopped onto my back and crossed my leg over my chest, pulling it out to my side so I could stretch my hip out. “Today has not gone as planned.”
Just as I said those words, I felt the water seeping into my back.
I looked backward to see that in my flop backward, I’d knocked over my water.
I groaned and lifted it back upright, hoping that I hadn’t lost the entire contents.
“I guess I’ll run with you and give you a little competition,” he teased as he placed his girl on the ground. “Baby, can you play by yourself for a bit so we can run?”
“I run!”
“Sure you can,” he offered. “But just make sure you don’t cross in front of us. I don’t want to run you over.”
“Yes, Daddy.” She nodded. “I will.”
I had a feeling that “I will” was more like “I will trip you up, but I’ll look cute doing it.”
“Good deal,” he said. “I stopped to get food, too. Got your favorite. Shrimp.”
“Yum!” Lottie licked her lips comically.
God, she was sure a cute little girl.
“And your hair looks fantastic, darling,” Gunner teased as he pulled a loose strand out of the messy bun that I’d put it in.
For three years old, Lottie had more hair than a full-grown adult.
“Yes!” Lottie pursed her lips and blew a kiss at her dad.
We both had a stunned moment of silence, and then burst out laughing.
“The sass on this one,” I teased as I got up to stretch my hamstrings. “You taught her everything you know, huh?”
“Of course.” He winked, his eyes going from my face to my ass. “Do I need to stretch?”
I shrugged. “I’m not your keeper, Gunner Lewiston.”
“Penn,” he corrected me gently. “I don’t want to be associated to that asshole.”
“That asshole” being his grandfather.
A long time ago, before we were smart enough to comprehend, Gunner once had a mom and a sister.
Gunner’s father had been very intensely entrenched in the gang life. He’d pulled Gunner’s mother into it, too. They’d produced two children together, but neither one of them had been able to pull themselves out of the gang life. In fact, Gunner’s mom had even gone as far as to pull Gunner’s Uncle Parker into it.
The one good thing that we could say that Gunner’s grandfather had done was force Parker to turn his life around.
And he had.
Parker had gotten married to a wonderful woman named Kayla, and they’d had two children—Abram and Elinore.
Where Parker had been able to turn his life around, Parker’s sister, and Gunner’s mom, had not.
