Mountain Daddy_The Single Dad's New Baby

by Layla Valentine

  “Something like that,” Ethan said. He crossed his burly arms over his chest and squinted at me, almost trying to look all the way through me. “The privacy. The fact that we don’t have to answer to anyone out here. And also…” He paused for a long moment. I felt tension grow between us, shivers running up and down my spine.

  “Well, just between us, I used to have a very different life,” he said.

  Different lives. Didn’t we all have that? I’d been an attorney for years, sure. But before that, I’d been a student. I’d briefly been a loving and caring girlfriend. I’d been a high school cheerleader, for a season or two. And before that, I’d been a doting and loving daughter, much like Gracie. But as I assessed Ethan, it became clear to me that he didn’t just mean this.

  “Oh yeah?” I said, urging him on.

  “Are you sure you want to know?” he asked, cracking a slight smile.

  His eyes glittered, showing a kind of bad-boy arrogance. I had a passing fancy that I wanted to sit on his lap, to whisper into his ear. I wanted to inhale his scent. I brought my hand across my nose, trying to control my sudden urges. I hadn’t a clue where they came from.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.”

  “All right.” He cleared his throat, his eyes growing even darker. “I used to be a bounty hunter.”

  Immediately, my thoughts clouded with images of all I knew of bounty hunters. A dark and brooding man, following a target across the continent, a gun strapped into his holster. I imagined Ethan’s large, domineering hands, gripping at some stranger’s throat, lifting him into the air, demanding attention. Outside, behind me, I listened as his young daughter began to whistle tunefully. I shivered at the contrast.

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?” I asked, wondering if I had misheard, or if he was perhaps playing me for a fool.

  But Ethan didn’t let up. “I was a bounty hunter for twelve years. Always living on the fringe of society, working odd jobs, you know. That is, until three years ago.”

  “Three?” I felt this didn’t add up. Gracie was six years old. Had he really been carting a little girl around from one murderous job to the next?

  “That’s when the state contacted me,” he continued, “telling me I had a daughter. You can imagine the kind of punch to the gut that was. That I had a three-year-old daughter I didn’t even know about. Her mother never informed me. I didn’t see her much after our brief affair, anyway.”

  “The state contacted you?” I asked, incredulous. “But what about—”

  “She passed away,” Ethan said, his eyes lowering. “She didn’t have anyone else. No mother, no father. No siblings. Basically, the state said that if I didn’t pick up my daughter, she’d be taken into foster care. A three-year-old orphan, essentially. I couldn’t bear the thought of it. So, I changed everything.”

  “Suddenly, your life was turned upside down,” I breathed. “Everything you’d ever known…”

  “It didn’t matter after that,” Ethan said, a small smile breaking out. His teeth were near-perfect, glossy white. “I went to the foster mother who’d had had her the past few days, while they were trying to contact me. I peered into her little bed as she slept. Just this bright blond baby, with these little hands that were gripping the comforter. When she finally did wake up, she laughed at me, as if she’d known my face all along. After that, I couldn’t leave her there. I knew I had to step up.”

  I was completely shocked at this news. Leaning heavily against the back of my chair, I asked, “Does Gracie know about your past?”

  “Of course not,” Ethan said. “She knows that I wasn’t with her mother for a few years, and that she didn’t come live with me until she was three. But she really doesn’t remember anything before that, so she accepts it as fact. The way she accepts Picasso as a fact, for example, even though she’s never met him.”

  After a brief pause, he added, “I have a single picture of her mother. I found it on one of my internet accounts. She’d posted it online seven years ago, maybe. One of the both of us. We hadn’t gotten along well. It had been just a sexual thing, really, especially since I was always going out of town on my ‘missions,’ as she called them.”

  “Did you tell her what you were doing?” I asked, genuinely mystified.

  “Never,” he said. “I didn’t want to put her at risk. I couldn’t let anyone know what I did. It was invigorating, being out on my own all the time. But it was also terribly lonely. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I took Gracie on, as well. I don’t think I could have kept going like that, all on my own.”

  “You’re brave,” I said, unable to think of another adjective. “Both for doing that and giving it up for someone who only had you to rely on.” I shifted, trying to pull the pieces of this puzzle together in my mind. “And you had to come all the way out here—out in the mountains—because…?”

  Ethan rose up. I watched as his muscles adjusted in his black shirt. He gripped the bottle of wine on the countertop and lifted it, pouring us both another hearty glass. I accepted mine, feeling my head grow a bit heavier. I was leaning toward him, inhaling the strength of his story.

  “Well, when I got out of the game and had a toddler with me, I couldn’t keep moving around the way I had been. Before, I was always in and out of hotels, coming and going across the country so that nobody could track me down. I used many different names, and I had passports to back up most of them, just so I could slip in and out of places, unbeknownst to the people I was tracking.

  “With a daughter who was in the state system, I knew I couldn’t keep up changing my name. I had to remain in one place, get her signed up for preschool, build a world for her. And I couldn’t use anything else but my name, so she could keep her last one. Tiller.”

  “Of course,” I breathed, recognizing the problem. “But who was trying to track you down?”

  “Due to my former line of work, I have plenty of now-incarcerated criminals who want me dead. It’s just the facts. I worked hard for my living, and I saved up a lot of money. Which means we can hide out here till she’s 18, at least. It’s the only way I can assure our safety. It’s the only way I can assure that the criminals I tracked down won’t find a way to send their goons after me. It’s the only way I can make sure they won’t come and find me and make me remember how I ruined them.”

  Again, I felt myself shiver. Ethan spoke with such intensity, contrasting the gorgeous sunset outside, which glowed orange against his daughter’s curly hair.

  I crossed my legs, feeling my thighs squeeze at my groin—igniting me with excitement, attraction. It had been a long time since I’d been this enamored with someone. And I’d never had such excitement mix with such a sense of fear.

  “Anyway,” he continued, shrugging slightly. “I hope my story doesn’t freak you out.”

  “No…” I said, slicing my palm through the air. “I think it’s a remarkable story. How much you gave up for your daughter—it’s inspiring. And having worked as an attorney for years, I’m no stranger to this world.” My eyes glittered. “You were hunting the bad guys, sounds like.”

  “And sounds like you were defending them,” Ethan said, teasing me for the first time.

  “Mostly drug cases,” I said. “Men who did drugs, got caught, and didn’t want to go to jail for it. Also, a few cases where I was fighting for fathers who wanted partial custody of their children. That definitely got tough at times.”

  Ethan nodded, his eyes growing fierce. “You can’t imagine how much Gracie has changed me.” Bringing his hands over the table, he crossed his thumbs. “I don’t know what I was living for, before. One high after another, emotionally, and sexually, and in so many other ways…” He trailed off, perhaps sensing he was saying too much. “Anyway, she’s really grounded me. Given me a purpose.”

  A purpose. What exactly did that feel like, after so much recklessness, I wondered.

  I turned my eyes to my half-drunk second glass of wine, beginning to feel that if he remained in my
presence another moment more, I might jump him. He didn’t seem fazed by the wine at all. Instead, he was more vocal, stronger, more present than he’d been when we’d first met at the side of the mountain.

  As he shifted on the chair, I watched as a tattoo flashed from beneath his black T-shirt. I peered at it, trying to trace its outline before it was covered once more. It seemed to be a black horse, rearing up on its hind legs.

  I began to piece together a question about it, wondering if it was significant in some way to his past life as a bounty hunter. But before I could speak, Gracie entered from the porch. Her blond hair curled around her ears, and her eyes were heavy, bleary. She blinked twice, first at me, then her father.

  “Daddy? I’m so tired,” she said. Her coloring book and pack of crayons hung down from her hand, looking about to fall. She shrugged slightly. “Can I lie down on the bed?”

  “Of course, honey,” I answered, stepping forward.

  But Ethan was quick to intervene. “I think it’s about time we got going, baby,” he told his daughter, taking a step toward her. With a flourish, he lifted her into the air and held her with one arm against his strong, broad chest. As I watched him do it, I wanted to race up against his other side and hold them both close. But I held back, feeling my head whirl with wine.

  “You’re all right to drive the rest of the way?” I heard myself ask, knowing the answer. Ethan had only had one glass, and was no drunker than he’d been before taking a single sip. He was sturdy, made of something else.

  “We’ll be fine,” he said. He stared at me for a long moment, his face stern. Gracie tucked her head against his shoulder, nestling into him. They were very near perfect, the stuff of old paintings I’d seen in a museum in San Francisco. Sons and daughters who look just like their fathers and mothers. Enough love to go around.

  I wanted to tell them to stay. To use the bed. I’d sleep on the porch, if I had to. I was suddenly, horribly attached. I couldn’t imagine myself sleeping at the cabin alone, in the midst of the dark clouds and dying sunlight and thick pines.

  “Will we see Serena again soon, Daddy?” Gracie asked, her voice soft and lilting.

  “I don’t know, baby,” Ethan said, smoothing his large hand across her back. He eyed me with purpose, as if waiting for me to respond.

  “I’d love to see you both again,” I answered, mostly to him. “Any time you can.”

  “We’ve got the next few days off of school, don’t we, baby?” he asked Gracie, as she slowly tipped off to sleep. “Which leaves us plenty of time to fix that car, if you’ll let us.”

  My eyebrows rose high. “I nearly forgot about it,” I said, answering truthfully. If anyone had asked me how Ethan had ended up at my cabin that night, I would have said it was fate—nothing more. “I should really dial that mechanic…”

  “Don’t bother,” Ethan said, giving me a slight smile. “The mechanic in town is a crack. He charges tourist prices, which you don’t deserve.”

  “Don’t I?” I asked, feeling myself giggle slightly. “Isn’t that exactly what I am? Coming into your mountains and disrupting everything?”

  “Sure. But I’ll let you off the hook this time,” Ethan said, turning his boots toward the back door and his truck. “I’ll pick up the car tomorrow morning and do the best I can with what I know. I can’t promise anything. It’s not exactly my original expertise.”

  With a jolt, I reminded myself that his “original expertise” was actually bounty hunting. But as I followed behind them into the gravelly driveway, I felt I was floating with excitement.

  I watched as he slipped Gracie into the front seat of the truck, before giving me a burly wave. I was fascinated with the duality of his personality. He seemed gruff, reserved, caught between his past and this strange present. Yet he also seemed sweet, sensitive, having to care for this young girl, who’d turned to crayons, coloring books, and her father for eternal happiness.

  What a strange switch that must have been, I thought.

  I lifted my hand as Ethan crept back down the driveway, steering the truck down the hill, before winding back up. When they were out of sight, I could still hear the gurgle of the engine, somewhere beyond the trees. When I couldn’t hear it anymore, I closed the door and locked it tight, noticing that my hands were shaking. I refilled my glass and skirted out onto the porch to watch the rest of the light die down around me, closing me into the stillness of the forest.

  As I sat on the porch swing, creaking it up and down, I felt excitement fill me. I couldn’t imagine a better way to live: far away from my maddening life in the city, deep in the mountains, with a handsome, curious man about to return to me.

  Everything about Ethan piqued my curiosity. His muscled frame and gruff voice thrilled me sexually. I brought my hand up and down my thigh, wondering what it would be like if he touched me. I wondered if it would feel electric. If it would make me feel alive in ways I hadn’t in years.

  I knew all of that was probably an impossibility. He was just a mountain man, attempting to help out a poor, single woman like me. But on the other side of the coin, he’d revealed more to me about his past than I was necessarily comfortable with, which almost endeared him to me. Not seeing one another again would be a crime against potential passion.

  No. I couldn’t allow myself to get swirled up in the world of romance.

  I set my jaw, staring out at the last of the horizon line, over the lake. If I saw him again, so be it. And if I didn’t, I would enjoy my week in the mountains alone.

  I told myself this, knowing, beyond anything else, that it wasn’t the truth. Not even a little.

  Chapter 5

  Ethan

  Gracie tucked her head against me in the truck early the next morning, whispering, “Daddy, I’ll just close my eyes for a minute.” Her curls were still damp from her morning bath.

  My heart squeezed with a moment of pure love. As she fell back into slumber, I cranked the truck back from the hidden driveway near the cabin I’d built with my two hands three years before.

  I still had the scars on my fingers. I’d worked quickly, diligently, knowing I had to build a house of permanence for my “new” daughter. I’d known that anything less safe than this would necessarily allow the people who were after me to find me. I knew I couldn’t take any risks.

  Chugging back down the mountain, my eyes turned toward Serena’s cabin as we passed it. I was already so curious, yearning to catch a glimpse. I’d asked Tatiana down in the town to watch Gracie, as it was the weekend and school was out. Tatiana’s daughter, Rachel, was one of Gracie’s best friends. They often played together for hours, without a single moment of reprieve.

  After dropping Gracie off, and giving Tatiana a hearty thanks, I turned the truck back toward the mountain, swept passed the entrance of the national park, and found myself braking directly in front of Serena’s little red Chevy.

  Inspecting it, I walked around it, eyeing every mark, every scrape. It was clear Serena didn’t drive it often, probably taking some form of public transit in the city. She probably hadn’t given much thought to it: that if she didn’t drive her car often, it probably wouldn’t be up to making such a trek.

  I latched the red car to my truck, then towed it back toward her cabin. My truck creaked along. As I eased toward Serena, flashes of her bright smile remained in my mind. I hadn’t met a woman quite as beautiful, quite as vibrant as her in years.

  Of course, I had good reason for my gruff exterior. It wasn’t like I could bring a woman into mine and Gracie’s life. We had to be strong, calculated, guarded, if we were going to avoid disaster. And beyond that, I’d never been much for commitment. Gracie’s mother had known that—she hadn’t even told me about the baby in the first place.

  Learning that I’d missed out on three years of Gracie’s life had absolutely devastated me. I often thought about what it must have been like to experience Gracie’s first smile, her first step. I wondered what it would have been like to cradle her when sh
e cried as an infant, so terrified and angry, a ball of wild energy.

  I couldn’t ever make up for that time. I could only move forward.

  As my truck tires creaked across the gravel of the driveway, Serena appeared in the doorway. She was clinging to a mug of something hot—probably coffee—and her eyes glowed over the top of it.

  I brought my chin lower and began to walk toward her, trying to conceal my excitement about seeing her. Her slim frame, gorgeous breasts, and coiffed, blond hair made her into a near-perfect package. And the way she stared at me gave me the assurance that she felt the same.

  But I couldn’t do anything about it.

  “Hey there,” she began, her voice tentative. I could tell my height and muscled frame frightened her as well as excited her. Her nostrils flared. “Hope you slept all right?”

  “Sure did,” I said, my voice lower than normal. I yanked my head toward her car. “Figured I’d give this a try before the day gets away from us.”

  “Thank you,” she squeaked. “It really means the world. I don’t know how else I’d get back home. Although…” She gestured to the lake behind the cabin, the bright blue sky, “I don’t know how I could ever leave a place like this.”

  I held her gaze for a moment, feeling the tension mount between us. Without another word, I turned back toward my truck, taking out a large toolbox. I opened up the front of her red car, revealing its metal organs, and began to tinker.

  After just a few moments, Serena appeared beside me holding a second coffee cup—steaming, with just a small ounce of milk making it a light brown. I thanked her. In response, her cheeks turned bright red.

  “You look like you know what you’re doing,” Serena said, grinning.

  “I’ve fixed a car or two in my time,” I told her.

  “In your old life? As a bounty hunter?” she asked, showing her curiosity, looking earnest. “I’m sure you ran into all kinds of trouble.”