Chapter 21
Auggie was leaning against him, her shoulder pressed to his.
Cal suspected she didn’t realize she was doing it.
Maeya was sound asleep on his shoulder. Somehow, Markie had ended up with his iPad, playing a free numbers game for preschoolers.
That kid had the soul of an accountant in there now.
He’d never seen a kid doing addition and subtraction at three, but she was.
Kameron was telling her numbers to add up on the app.
It would give a cartoon voice answer when Markie hit the right button.
She’d just giggle like it was magic. It took a little while, but everyone was making Markie a part of the meeting. She was adorable, too.
Auggie was finally losing the tension that had been tensing her shoulders, as the meeting progressed.
She was asking questions and taking notes.
He’d have to ask if she’d share when he got a chance.
He was a bit too distracted by the smell of her shampoo.
The woman…tempted him. He suspected she knew it, too.
This was what he wanted. He wanted a woman who excited him, who tempted and teased.
Who was intelligent and quick-witted and who loved driving him crazy.
He wanted a family that made a man feel like he mattered.
Like he was doing something worthwhile. He wanted to be there to see a little girl captivated by something as simple as math. He wanted to belong to someone special.
He'd been lonely.
It had taken him too long to realize that.
His sister was in the dining room now. She stopped by their table after she finished her meal—she’d been eating with that goober Zach Lowell this time. “You look like you’ve been claimed.”
He spread his hand over the little back. She was drooling down his shirt. “I don’t mind.”
“Aunt Claudie, me do math.”
“Numbers again? Of course.” Claudia looked at his iPad dutifully. “You are so smart, Markie Tyler. Good job! Aug, I’m off the clock now. I can take these two back to Cal’s place. Clancy is already on her way home. You can pick them up there.”
“Me go with Aunt Claudie, see Clancy?” Markie asked, hopefully.
“A certain cartoon villain is reading a story book downstairs in five minutes, too,” Claudia said. “He does that occasionally, or so I have heard.”
“I would forever be in your debt,” Auggie said.
Just like that, she had no kids. And no car—Claudia had ridden with her buddy Zach. She left with Auggie’s kids, and Auggie’s keys. And a promise from Cal to see to it that Auggie made it home.
Claudia was his favorite sister now.
Cal volunteered to drive Auggie home, fast. Before her cousin Gil could. He was going to get some time with the woman he wanted tonight. Come hell or high water. He was going to get that woman alone.
She was looking at him. Cal smirked as he readjusted his now drool-covered tie. “I would love to drive you home, tonight, Miss Tyler. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Behave yourself,” her cousin Fletcher just had to add. His fiancée, or whatever that Talley girl was to him, kicked him audibly under the table.
Auggie wasn’t escaping Cal now.
He captured her. Even though she’d called Junie to check on the girls, even though she’d called her aunt to check on January and Jules, too. She’d called Clancy, Claudia and Em to get her babies back. But…she was almost certain they’d somehow all conspired against her. Because of him.
Cal took her to the vintage movie theatre north of town and acted like they were on a date.
Auggie wasn’t going to lie to herself. That was exactly what it had turned out to be.
She was alone—sort of—with the man who wanted her.
And it gave her those particular kinds of chills every woman knew and understood.
He was paying for the popcorn when she finally got her senses about herself.
The man had kissed her in the parking lot.
Just helped her out of his truck and kissed her.
Right there, in the slushy rain. In front of a bunch of teenagers—including her younger cousin Deacon.
Who had practically given him the third degree after.
What were Derrick and the rest of those cavemen teaching that boy?
“Your cousins take it seriously, don’t they?”
“Every last one of them. I strongly suspect even Robin’s boys will turn into Tyler Cavemen when they are older. Phil’s boys are already starting.”
“You are lucky to have such a large family. My mom was an only child, and my dad’s brother died before Clancy was born.
He had left Wyoming decades earlier. I don’t even know if he ever married.
There may be Grady cousins out there, but we just don’t know.
So other than my little pack of siblings, we really don’t have any Gradys left in Masterson County. ”
It was a shame; the original Grady was a founding father, she thought. Just like a Tyler was. “Well, there are five of you. You and Cadell could marry and have kids someday.”
They’d probably both be good at it. She was one hundred percent convinced of that. “You’ll make a good daddy someday.”
“If I ever have kids, however I get them, I will do my damnedest to be the best father I possibly can be.” He looked at her, as they waited for the movie to start and the lights to dim.
“My dad was a good father. He wasn’t always there—he couldn’t be, considering he was working and how sick my mother was—but we always knew he loved us.
I’m not sure what sent him over the edge.
I’m still not. Even he doesn’t know. I think it was that that guy was stalking Clancy that did it, or the threat to Claudia, but I have never for a moment doubted he loved us. ”
“I am sorry.” She had always liked Jasper Grady. Had felt safe with him. She understood the confusion and pain in Cal’s words. Claudia had said she thought their father’s actions had affected Cal the most. She had to wonder if Claudia wasn’t correct in that.
“I’m not going to be like him.” He shifted his arm around her shoulder. The popcorn was between them. It was so stereotypical and cliched. She’d only been to the movies with one man in her life. A boy, really. He’d been twenty-two at the time. She half-suspected he’d really just wanted her ranch.
It wasn’t anything like this.
As the movie played, he pulled her closer. And midway through—he kissed her.
The hottest kiss of her life. And she knew…
Everything about her situation was so damned complicated.
She didn’t know what she was going to do about this man at all.