Late Nights & Love Lines (Single Dad Hotline #2)

8. Obnoxious protector

8

OBNOXIOUS PROTECTOR

ROWAN

“ P ranks would have been a lot easier if I had two-day shipping when I was a kid,” I whisper, catching up to Seren. The trail curves to the right, blocking us from her father’s view for a few steps.

She cringes, and I laugh.

“It wasn’t for you,” she mutters.

Shock must register on my face because she shrugs. “It wasn’t.”

“Who was it for then?” Who the hell is she trying to give the shits?

She glares over her shoulder to where Sebastian is walking with Kade on his shoulders and Miles at his side as they round the bend.

“Promise you won’t tell my dad?”

Ah, crap. Don’t do this to me, kid.

“I promise not to tell your dad as long as you promise not to do anything without running it by me first.”

Seren rolls her eyes and her lashes flutter along her brow line with the movement. I’d forgotten how many times teenagers do that. “Whatever. I’m going to get in trouble either way. I was going to stick it in the coffee of whatever full-time nanny he plans to stick me with.”

I was the kid trying desperately to hide and blend in, but some of the kids I met on the street were always looking for trouble, anything to get their parents’ attention. Is that what she’s doing?

I peek back at Sebastian. He doesn’t seem to be a man who would ignore his children, but he’s had a lot going on.

“Are you trying to get in trouble?”

She stares at the ground and kicks at a rock. “Not like it would matter.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It doesn’t matter. My mom was gone long before she took off, and my dad tries, but his work comes first.”

“Your dad loves you, Seren.” Anyone can see that. “And he’s worried about you.”

She doesn’t answer, but she does pick up her pace.

How do I keep her from sabotaging all the prospective nannies?

“What if we pull some pranks on your dad and Pappy instead?” She stops walking and stares at me with wide eyes full of cautious excitement.

“Are you serious?”

“Very. Your dad could stand to loosen up a bit, and camp prank wars are part of the experience.”

“I’m so in.” She grins without a moment’s hesitation.

“Done. But one rule.” Her grin slips from her face. “No pranks that can cause lasting damage or make anyone sick.”

She rolls her eyes again. “Deal,” she mumbles. “What happens if we get into trouble? What if he fires you?”

Now I roll my eyes. The action must be contagious. “If he fires me, I’ll tell on him to Pappy. I’m pretty sure Pappy likes me more.”

She laughs, and Sebastian’s sharp intake of air tells me they’ve caught up enough to hear it.

“My turn, my turn, my turn,” Kade squeals. His little feet stomp on the trail in circles around me. “I need a stick.”

“A stick, huh?” I ask, smiling down at him.

“Yup. I gotta fight the bears.”

“A stick it is then. But we can’t hurt the trees, so we need to find one on the ground already.” We move closer to the edge of the trail at a slower pace, and everyone else goes ahead of us.

“Oh, there’s Lucky,” he says, waving with both of his hands.

I stand still, scowling at the black furball. Would anyone notice if I took him to an animal shelter? That cat is a bad omen, and no one’s going to tell me otherwise.

I accidentally stub my toe in the ground, and Lucky scurries back toward camp.

“Let’s find your stick,” I say, thankful that Kade is so easy to distract.

We walk in silence for a while, well, as silent as Kade is capable of being. In between the ground crunching beneath our feet and the tree branches sighing with each gust of wind, he happily hums to himself, lost to the land of make-believe in his head.

He doesn’t have a single fear. It’s pretty incredible to witness.

Leo told me that the property is only about four acres, and that includes the land Sebastian’s house is on, but for little kids, I can see how this would feel like an entirely new world.

“Holy crap.” Seren gasps, and I lift my head to find her stopped in the middle of the trail.

Sebastian and I hurry the boys along to see what’s caught her attention, and I immediately blame Lucky.

“Oh, wow.” We all stare down at the washed-out trail. “It’s a pretty steep hill. All the rain a couple of days ago must have done this.”

“But the horses,” Seren whispers.

I glance up at Sebastian, and I swear we share thoughts without saying a word. She wants to see the horses more than she was letting on. Raising my brow, I nod toward the trail with a shrug.

“Worst case, we can get Leo or Alexei to come pick us up,” he whispers.

“You think we can get them down the embankment safely?”

Sebastian takes a few steps down, testing the ground. “It’s pretty dry. The rain probably unearthed all these tree roots.” He flashes a pointed stare at each of his kids. “If we go down, you all have to be very careful and go slowly.”

They all agree, and Sebastian goes first with Miles. Seren goes next, and then I help Kade down. It’s easier than it looked. Sebastian, Miles, and Seren make it down without breaking a sweat. It’s taking Kade and me a bit longer because he insists on checking every root for bugs.

“Go ahead and have a water break,” I call down to them. “We’ll be down in a minute.”

Sebastian waves and tugs the backpack off his broad shoulders.

“It’s so cool,” Kade says, tugging free of my hand.

Then I see it.

The snake.

Everything moves in slow motion until a scream breaks the silence—my scream.

“No,” I shout, lunging for Kade. I grab ahold of him when he’s less than three feet away from the copperhead that’s clearly agitated. I pull Kade back toward me and away from the snake as quickly as I can, but my foot slips on an old root and we hit the ground.

Hard.

We slide for what my fear says is an eternity, but in reality is probably less than five seconds. Sebastian must have sprinted as soon as he heard me scream because he reaches us just as we stop moving.

I have Kade tucked into my chest. I think I protected him from the worst of the fall, but I can’t be sure.

“Ch—check him,” I gasp. The air hasn’t returned to my lungs yet.

Sebastian lifts Kade easily from my chest, and I heave for oxygen. “Buddy. Are you okay? What happened? Does anything hurt?”

“That was the coolest snake I’ve ever seen,” Kade says excitedly.

“V—venomous. Copperhead,” I wheeze.

“Kade, are you hurt?” Sebastian asks again, and finally I sit up, trying to take inventory of my body, but everything aches. It takes a few more seconds to register the stabbing pain from my ankle, but when I do, I force myself not to whimper.

That’s going to be a bitch.

“Nope.” Kade pops his P with a full-body wiggle.

“Snakes here are dangerous, Kade. That snake was venomous, it has poison that could have killed you. You can’t just charge after things like that.” Sebastian’s voice is tight with fear, and it unlocks a piece of my heart that my own father used to hold.

The little boy’s eyes widen as he registers what his dad is saying, and then his tears fall.

“It’s okay. You didn’t know,” I say. My voice is a little breathless still, but hopefully I’m doing a bang-up job at hiding my pain.

“Are you okay?” Sebastian asks, scanning my body now.

I’m covered in dirt and scratches, but it’s my ankle that throbs. “Yeah. Go ahead, take him down. I’ll be fine.”

Sebastian frowns but does as I ask.

With his back to me, I slowly lift my body from the ground and gingerly take a step on my injured foot. Fuck, that hurts. But it doesn’t feel broken, so I slowly make my way down. It’s only a quarter mile to the beach. Seren isn’t missing those damn horses because of one stupid sprained ankle.

When I reach the bottom of the hill, Sebastian is tossing all the kids’ water bottles into his backpack. If I get my hands on Lucky, I’m going to ring his furry little neck.

“Are you okay?” Seren asks.

“I’m sure I look much worse than I feel,” I say, forcing a laugh.

Sebastian examines me again, but this time his gaze licks flames across my skin.

“I’m fine. A few aches aren’t going to keep me from these horses, and we’re almost to the beach. Let’s go. I’ll pull up the rear.”

“Rowan,” Sebastian groans. He’s not convinced, so I place my hands on my hips and instantly wish I hadn’t when needles press into my skin, but I’ll be damned if I give him the satisfaction of inspecting my injuries when he’s studying me as though I’m his own personal pop quiz.

“When I say I’m fine, I mean it. I’ll need to go a little slower, that’s all.”

He grumbles something about a stubborn ass, then takes Kade’s hand and starts on the trail again.

Seren hangs back with me, which makes it much harder because now I have to hide my limp. Something pokes my side, and I find a few sharp prickers sticking out of my skin. Shit. How the hell do I get those out?

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Seren asks, staring at my injured ankle.

“I’m fine.” I smile tightly, though it probably comes across as more of a grimace. “So, these pranks you’re planning on playing. You can’t do that stuff to the nannies coming in a few days.”

She scowls at me.

“Listen, if it were a normal camp, I might turn a blind eye, as long as they were harmless pranks. And by the way, laxatives do not fall into the harmless category. But the thing is, this event is really important to my friend, so I can’t let you sabotage it.”

We walk a few steps in silence. Sebastian glances back, and I give him a thumbs up when really, the urge to flip him off is strong, and I have no idea why other than he draws such volatile reactions from me.

“I don’t really have any friends. Not anymore.” The sadness in her voice claws at all my old wounds.

“It’s hard,” I admit. “I’ve only ever had one or two real friends, not a big circle of them, so I’ve never felt as though I’m missing anything, you know? It must be so much harder to suddenly not have them anymore.”

She nods, but I can tell she’s flustered by my honesty. “Everyone started making fun of me after my mom. Their parents wouldn’t let them come to my house anymore, and then they started excluding me from everything.”

“Well, those parents sound like idiots.” I huff. “And twelve is a tough age, especially for girls. Someone is always the bad guy, the one they push away. But it also changes faster than the wind. I’ll bet when you return to school in the fall, something else will happen to make them forget all about this and your friends will be back.”

“I don’t want them back,” she snaps, but her welling eyes tells a different story. “They’re punishing me for something I didn’t do. Why would I want friends like that? And what kind of friend are they if they throw me away so easily?”

Her reasoning is solid and shockingly sound for a twelve-year-old.

“Well, you’re more mature than I was at your age, that’s for sure. But you’re right. Maybe they’re not your crew. Sometimes it takes these harsh realities to show you who you can really count on.”

My mind drifts to my hotline dad, Thane. He’s raising a sister who’s around Seren’s age and is dealing with something similar. I make a mental note to ensure his sister is in Seren’s group during Lottie’s event.

“I think you’ll find a lot of the kids are dealing with similar feelings when the other campers get here.”

“Oh yeah? Are there a lot of moms cheating on dads, then vanishing as though their kids never mattered?”

Oof. Okay, Seren is pissed off. She’s working through those stages of grief pretty quickly—I might need a refresher course to keep up with her.

“Not exactly, but trust me, you’ll be surprised by how much you have in common.”

The trail turns to sand, making it even more strenuous for my ankle, and with each step, I have to work harder to school my expression.

Eventually, Sebastian and the boys come into view. They’re up ahead, standing at a fence with a Jeep behind them.

Sebastian’s expression darkens when he locks in on the limp I can no longer hide. Walking in the sand is a fucking bitch.

He jogs toward us with a scowl. “What the hell, Rowan? You said you were fine.”

Before I can process his actions, he swoops down and lifts me in a wedding hold to his chest. I’m too shocked to push him away.

“She’s been limping for a while, Dad.”

“Hey, I thought we were on the same team,” I grumble, and she shrugs.

“Why the hell do you have to be so damn stubborn about everything?” He curses under his breath so only I can hear.

“About everything? You don’t even know me. Do you have a knight in shining armor complex? I’m perfectly capable of walking.”

He stomps toward the Jeep, pulling me more firmly to his chest, which presses those damn prickers deeper into my skin, but I refuse to flinch. When he reaches the Jeep, he sets me down in the front seat, then his hand is on my shin—his touch branding me with something scarily like desire, and I refuse to acknowledge it. Lifting my leg, he sets my foot on the dashboard, and I flinch.

“Okay, maybe fine was too mild a word,” I grumble.

“For fuck’s sake, Rowan. Are you trying to do permanent damage?”

I shoo him away. “It’s just swollen. It hardly even hurts,” I lie, then search the space for something made of wood. When I don’t find anything, I knock on the dashboard—I can never be too careful when it comes to attracting good luck. “Nothing is broken, and I am fine. Where did you get this Jeep?”

“You’re infuriating.”

Kade climbs up into the Jeep and holds out his hand to me. We spent all day yesterday working on our secret handshake. Once it’s complete, I return my glare to his father.

“And you’re obnoxiously overprotective,” I hiss.

Seren laughs, and we turn our heads toward her. That’s when I realize how close Sebastian is—our cheeks are nearly touching, and the scent of him scrambles my brain. He’s clean and minty and something musky I can’t define.

“How ya doin’?” Kade asks, causing me to lurch away from Sebastian.

“I’m good, buddy. You ready to see some horses?” I clear my throat when it croaks like a frog.

“Yup. Daddy said I don’t even need my car seat.”

I frown at Daddy , and he shrugs.

“It’s a tour Jeep, they don’t provide them. Leo dropped it off for us because the horses are further north today.”

Leo is on top of everything, and I’m not going to complain about it.