Keeping Secrets

by Parker, Weston

  Although if any of the literature I’d looked up was anything to go by, she’d be crawling in with me for a long time to come. It meant more cuddles for me, so I really couldn’t complain.

  Soft, early morning sunlight streamed through large windows and skittered across the ocean beyond the beach. It was a breathtaking view to wake up to.

  When I’d contacted the realtor, I’d asked him to find me a beachfront property, and he’d come through. Winter loved the beach and had been thrilled at the prospect of daily walks along the shore when we had arrived.

  Our entertainment area outside was separated from the beach only by a copse of trees, a small sand dune, and the infinity pool overlooking the azure blue waters of the Atlantic. The house itself wasn’t ostentatious or overly large like the one we’d left behind.

  It was a modern but cozy three-bedroom house with a study I was going to convert into a space for me to play, a garage, and a nicely sized backyard. There was already a jungle gym on the bright green lawn and the pool was covered for Winter’s safety.

  The movers had unpacked all our large furniture and the basic stuff for the kitchen, but the rest was going to be up to me. There were still a lot of boxes left for me to slog through, and the house was less than unpacked, but it still felt more like a home than the place we’d left behind ever had.

  A light breeze rustled through the leaves of the tall Wax Myrtle trees the city was named after. I lay back in bed, just watching the wind and crash of waves to the shore. There was something about being here that was soothing to my soul.

  Winter stirred, the biggest smile on her face as soon as she opened her eyes. It looked like it wasn’t only my soul that was feeling happier and more at ease here.

  “Good morning, Daddy.”

  “Morning, sweetheart.” I propped myself up on an elbow and leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Are you hungry?”

  She nodded, rubbing her eyes with her tiny fists. “Do we have food here?”

  “Yeah, I think we should.” I’d arranged with the realtor to stock the fridge, but I didn’t have the slightest clue where to even start looking for everything I’d need to make a good breakfast. There was also the small issue of me being a terrible cook.

  With everything that had happened after Alice’s passing, I’d tried to fit in making an effort to learn. It hadn’t gone super well for me thus far, but maybe that was another thing I could work on while we were here.

  Ten minutes later, I stood in the center of the kitchen with my hands on my hips, and I gave the fuck up. “How about we go get something to eat somewhere else?”

  Winter giggled, her head bouncing up and down as she sat on the countertop watching me. “I think that’s a good idea.”

  “Hey, you can’t say I didn’t try.” I grinned and playfully poked her in the ribs before lifting her off the counter and setting her down on the floor.

  “You tried,” she replied dutifully between giggles, her arms winding around her waist to stop any further poking as she ran out of the kitchen ahead of me.

  After getting Winter dressed and settled with a puzzle in the living room, I had a quick shower, and when I was done, I found her standing in front of the bay window looking out over the ocean. I ruffled her hair as I came to stand next to her. “What do you think? It’s pretty here, huh?”

  “So pretty,” she agreed, letting out a soft sigh. There was a smile on her lips when she looked up at me. “I like it here.”

  “So do I, baby. But we still have to eat. So what’s it going to be?”

  She opened a fist I hadn’t realized had been balled up, presenting me with a ponytail holder. “Pancakes, but pony first.”

  I took the band from her and motioned for her to turn around. Yet another item on the long list of things I hadn’t been prepared for was the practical challenge of being a single father to a little girl. I’d never had to make a ponytail or a braid before in my life, but I was slowly reaching expert level.

  Pulling her soft hair into a ponytail high up on top of her head just the way she liked it, I took her hand when I was done and led her to the car. I’d seen a diner a few blocks back when we’d driven into our neighborhood yesterday and I figured they had to do pancakes, so I went there.

  Winter and I got settled in a booth and ordered pancakes and a milkshake for her, coffee for me. The waitress gave me a curious look, lingering a little while after taking our order. I didn’t think she recognized me, though.

  Since I wasn’t Kraken’s frontman, I didn’t get recognized very often. Lead guitarists weren’t usually the public’s focus very often.

  The waitress winked, letting me know she wasn’t looking for my autograph but for something I couldn’t give her. I gave a small shake of my head and the corners of her lips pressed in before she took off to get our order in.

  I wondered if I’d ever feel that spark of interest when I looked at someone again. I didn’t know if I even wanted to. But those were all things I could figure out with time. Time which I now had.

  Turning my attention back to Winter, I gave her my best stern look. “This is our last day of pancakes and milkshakes for breakfast. Tomorrow morning, we’re back to our usual routine.”

  “Yes, Daddy.” A smile tugged at her lips. “If you can find oats in the kitchen.”

  “I’ll find the oats. Don’t you worry. I just need time to get acquainted with our new kitchen. Speaking of which, we’re going to look at a new day-care for you today. How’s that sound?”

  “Good.” Excitement flashed in her blue eyes and she bounced on the seat. “Do you think I’ll make friends at the day-care?”

  “Yes, baby. I think you’ll make friends.” I didn’t really know why she hadn’t made any before, but I had a good feeling about Myrtle Beach, and that feeling extended to Winter settling in well.

  The fact that she was excited to go look at a day-care center and not sad about it was already a good sign. A better sign was that when we got to the brightly painted day-care center, I could practically see Winter falling in love with it.

  The manager I’d spoken to the day before, Ms. Austin, met us at the front entrance and took us on a tour of their facilities. By the end of it, I was a goner for the place too.

  “So do you think Winter will be joining us here?” she asked as we started circling back to where we’d started.

  “Absolutely,” I said without hesitation. “Where do I sign?”

  She smiled. “Let’s go get you the paperwork from my office. You can take it home with you and just bring it in when you drop your daughter off in the morning. You did say she’d be starting as soon as tomorrow, right?”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “Then let’s get you signed up.” She grinned and motioned me down a corridor I assumed was the administrative wing.

  As we walked up to the manager’s office, there was a woman sitting in one of the waiting area chairs. Since we were walking down the corridor leading to said waiting area, I had a full view of her face.

  I was surprised I even noticed her, but then again, I’d had to have been blind or dead to not notice her. She was beautiful, the kind of woman you noticed if you had a pair of eyes, balls, and a working dick. Even if it hadn’t worked in a long-ass fucking time.

  Deep blue eyes stared off into the distance while her fingers fidgeted in her lap. I couldn’t help but look at her as we approached the office. I tried—I did—but every time I looked away, it was like there was a magnet in her and the other side of it was lodged in my eyeballs.

  Okay. One minute. Look, then leave. That’s it.

  Surely, admiring a beautiful woman couldn’t be a betrayal of Alice’s memory.

  As Clark had pointed out to me time after time, I was still alive. Alice had believed in grabbing each day by the horns. She wouldn’t have wanted me to live the way I was now.

  It didn’t mean I was getting into a relationship, but it did make the guilt gripping my heart in a vise for just having noticed the w
oman ease up.

  Look. Don’t touch.

  Sucking a quiet breath as I gave myself permission to do it, I let my eyes roam freely and took in what really had to have been the most stunning woman I’d ever seen, aside from the one I’d made my wife.

  The bony groupies Clark liked to get down and dirty with had never turned me on. Nor had the full but fake lips or the balloons implanted into their chests.

  This girl, however, had everything that did turn me on. You know, back when I still used to get turned on, anyway.

  Loose black curls tumbled down her back and, in the front, hugged a sizable pair of breasts that didn’t look as perfectly round or perky as implants did. The neckline of the flowing, paisley-patterned dress she wore wasn’t low, but those weren’t the kind of tits that were easy to hide. Not from a self-professed boob-lover like myself, anyway.

  Former boob-lover, I reminded myself.

  But even so, I let my eyes linger for just a second longer before moving on. The dress clung just tightly enough to tell me that it hid voluptuous, luscious curves that my hands might have been itching to get on in a previous life.

  As things were, I stuffed them in the front pockets of my jeans just in case.

  Her lips, while as full as any of the fake pairs I’d seen recently, looked soft and perfectly natural. There was only a coat of clear gloss swiped across them, making the pink of them appear shiny.

  My tongue darted out to wet my own lips, my mouth suddenly going dry. With a twist in my stomach I hadn’t felt in years, I realized I wasn’t just looking at her anymore.

  I was checking her out, wondering what her moans sounded like when they spilled from those lips and whether those gorgeous breasts were sensitive to the touch. The thoughts alone nearly made a groan rip out of my chest, prompting me to tear my gaze away.

  “All right, Mr. Grimes,” Ms. Austin said, drawing my attention back to her. “Would you like me to get you the paperwork?”

  “Sure.” I cleared my throat when my voice came out husky. “Please, yeah. We’d love that.”

  She smiled and nodded, pivoting on one heel without acknowledging the woman in the waiting room a few yards away. I supposed she wanted to get one thing done before launching into the next.

  While I waited for her to get the enrollment forms and whatever paperwork we’d need, my gaze drifted back to the woman. Winter had gotten distracted by a toy a few rooms back, so I didn’t have to worry about her for the moment.

  “So,” I said, surprising even myself by talking to her. “Do you have any children here?”

  There. See? Harmless conversation. Research even, speaking to other parents about their experience with the center.

  Those dark blue eyes, so deep that looking into them was like looking into the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean, flared when she realized I had spoken to her. An awkward laugh rang out from her beautiful lips as she shook her head and pointed at her ample chest.

  “Me? No. No, I don’t have any kids.”

  Her cheeks flushed a rosy red hue and she blinked fast multiple times.

  It was obvious she was embarrassed by her answer, but before I could ask why, Ms. Austin reappeared and handed over the paperwork. Sighing internally, I decided to just let it go.

  She was embarrassed and I was done here. Best leave it at that.

  “Thanks,” I said to the manager, then inclined my head at both of them before I left. All I had to do now was retrace my steps to find my main and only girl. Then we could get out of there and I could put the beautiful woman behind me.

  Later, I’d deal with why she’d affected me the way she had when I hadn’t felt any sort of physical attraction to anyone for a long-ass fucking time. After that, I’d have to get down to business figuring out if I was really even allowed to feel that kind of attraction to someone else just yet.

  A year and a half wasn’t that long of a time, even if it felt like forever most days. It looked like Myrtle Beach was making me feel alive in more ways than one.

  I just didn’t know if that was a good thing yet.

  Chapter 6

  Tiffeny

  “Ms. Hurst?” the day-care manager asked, a frown crossing her brow as she glanced down at her watch after handing over the papers to the Hot Dad. “I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting. I wasn’t expecting you for another ten minutes. When I saw you sitting there earlier, I assumed you must be here for someone else. I didn’t realize how long that tour had taken.”

  “That’s okay, I’m early,” I managed to say, but I was mortified over how I’d just answered Hot Dad’s question. The way I said it made it sound like I thought having kids was the worst thing in the world when in reality, it had only come out that way because I’d felt like I’d been caught gawking at him.

  “Do you mind waiting just two more minutes?” the woman asked. “There’s a conference call I need to take with two of our board members. I’ve told them I have an appointment and they’ve said they’ll make it quick.”

  “It’s really fine,” I said, already pushing to my feet. “I’m not in a rush. I can wait.”

  “Thank you,” she said, pivoting and darting into her office.

  At the same time, I took off down the corridor Hot Dad had disappeared down. I needed to apologize if I could catch him. I was so damn embarrassed.

  Obviously, he was a dad. He’d been given the paperwork for enrollment at a day-care center, and when he’d just been trying to be friendly, I’d gone and offended him over something he should have been proud of.

  Being a parent was something to be proud of, not embarrassed about. Yet that was exactly the way I’d made it sound.

  God, I am such an idiot.

  I didn’t usually make such an ass of myself in front of men, even good-looking ones, but this one was next-level good looking and he’d caught me off guard. Like way off guard.

  There I was, sitting and waiting for my big meeting, when suddenly the hottest guy I’d ever seen just casually starts strolling right up to me. Seriously, I’d thought I was hallucinating for a second there.

  Guys who looked like that didn’t just walk up to girls. Girls flocked to them, dropped to their knees for them, and tossed their panties at their heads. Those guys definitely didn’t need to go up to anybody, but he had been. He’d been walking straight to me.

  My ears had gone hot and my heart began pounding way too hard.

  But then I realized I was in a day-care center and I was sitting right outside the manager’s office. He wasn’t coming up to me. He’d just been walking to the office.

  Real smooth, Tiff.

  Just when I’d thought at least I didn’t have to be embarrassed because he didn’t know what I’d been thinking, he spoke to me and I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

  Because really, no red-blooded woman who hadn’t gotten laid in months would have been able to speak articulately when surprised by a guy who looked like that. The man was sex on a stick as far as I was concerned. To my sex-deprived body anyway.

  When I’d looked up to find the most gorgeous eyes ever boring into mine, I’d completely lost any chance of saying something not entirely mortifying. But those eyes…

  Light green but rimmed by a ring of the richest emerald color and flecked with bright golden flecks. They were brought out and made to shine by messy, pitch-black hair on top of his head and even blacker lashes.

  Guys weren’t meant to have lashes like that, I was sure of it. But of course, this one did. Physically, he had to just go and be my very definition of perfect. Light eyes, dark hair, tanned skin, tall with ripped muscles, and a whole bunch of tattoos wrapping around his muscled forearms, disappearing beneath his T-shirt’s sleeves. Yum. Where do I sign up for some of that?

  Regardless of all that, there was an actual person inside that delicious wrapping. A person who had a kid and had just been offended by an idiot because he was hot.

  It wasn’t right.

  Unfortunately, in my haste to chase
after him, I didn’t have any time to consider what I actually wanted to say when I apologized. And so the blurting out continued as I pushed through the outer doors of the center and saw him waiting patiently behind a little girl who was inspecting a flower planted beside the path leading to the parking lot.

  “It’s not that I don’t want kids—” I clapped my hand over my mouth to stop myself. “Fuck.”

  His little girl was standing right there and I’d just cursed. Not mention that I’d made things so much more awkward by giving him that little tidbit of information. Why the hell would he care if I wanted kids or not?

  Amusement danced in his eyes as he watched me scramble for words, his lips twitching as if he was trying his damn best not to smile. Obviously, he hadn’t been as mortally offended by my outburst as I’d thought.

  Seeing that made me relax enough that I finally found words, despite once again feeling disarmed by those fucking eyes of his. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you that. I wanted to apologize for what I said inside and for the way I said it. I just… my head was in a different place.”

  Like in bed. With you. Licking along the colorful, rippling muscles of your arms and—

  Stop it!

  Hot Dad’s lips curved into a beautiful, annoyingly perfect smile. “It’s fine. It’s nothing to stress about.”

  “It’s nothing to stress about,” the little girl standing next to him said.

  She was the spitting image of her father with the black hair and the smooth, slightly tanned skin. But her eyes were a sparkling shade of ocean blue.

  Also gorgeous.

  Obviously, this family came from some superior-eyed gene pool.

  Suddenly, completely out of nowhere, the little girl strode forward and gave me a hug around my leg, patting the side of it. “You shouldn’t feel bad. Hugs make me feel better.”

  Surprised but totally charmed by her, I hugged her back. “Thank you. Hugs make me feel better too.”

  She let me go, walking back to her father’s side. He had watched the interaction between us with a slight crease between his brows, but it smoothed out the second he realized I was looking at him. I wondered about the frown, but there was no way I was making things even more awkward by asking him about it.