When We Met: A Small Town Single Dad Romance

by Shey Stahl

  “Whats I gotta do?”

  “See Kacy’s car?”

  She looks at the car, the cookies, and then me again. “Yes.”

  “Let the air out of the tires,” I whisper.

  You might be thinking, how’s a three-year-old knows how to do this? We’ve done this before. Went out to dinner one night and a douche hit the side of my truck with his car door. Didn’t give one fuck that he dented my door with his. While I talked to him about the cattle he was carrying in his trailer, I had the girls let the air out of his tires.

  Again, I know I’m going to hell. You don’t have to remind me of this.

  Sev agrees, lets the air out of the tires with no questions, and then holds out her hand. “Cookies.”

  I hand the entire box over to her. “Share with your sister.”

  “No way. Des are all mine.” And then she takes off into the office.

  I follow her to make sure she doesn’t rat me out. Thankfully she has no conscience that I can tell, and her memory is nonexistent. Although she does tell her sister, “I ates pee.”

  Camdyn looks at her little sister with disgust, cookie crumbs on her lips. “Gross.”

  “I know,” Sev whispers, chewing on a cookie. “I don’t even like pee.”

  Smiling, I nod to Kacy. “Looks like you need tires too.”

  Kacy perks up, her stare moving to the shop door. “I do? I thought the back ones were okay.”

  “Nope. Flat.” I wink at Sev when she grins and presses my fingers to my lips as Kacy turns her head.

  “Okay, well, I’m paying for them.” She hands Lillian her credit card. “I’m trusting you, girl. Charge me.”

  Lillian smiles. “Barron, can I talk to you about something?”

  She doesn’t give me time to answer before she yanks me into the hall outside the office. And jabs her goddamn finger in my chest. “What are you doing?”

  I glare at Lillian and knock her hand away. “Stop doing that,” I growl. “And keep your mouth shut.”

  “Hey, I got my own issues.” There’s sadness etched in her face. “Your brother made me a homewrecker.”

  I roll my eyes. “That’s a shitty thing to say. Don’t blame him entirely. You spread your legs for him. That makes you just as guilty.”

  “I know, but still….” And then her voice trails off, like there’s a part of this conversation that I’m not privy to.

  “Still what?”

  “I want to blame him.”

  “But you can’t, because it wasn’t like you fell on his dick and put it in your pussy, now, did you?”

  She rolls her eyes this time. “You’re disgusting.”

  “Lillian?”

  “What?”

  I press my fingers to my lips, smile, and start to walk away. “It’s our little secret.”

  “Wait.” I turn to face her. She’s acting nervous, eyes darting around the hallway. “Tell me one thing and I’ll keep your secret.”

  “What?”

  “How’d Carly and Morgan act last night at your dad’s?”

  Stepping back, I rest my shoulder against the wall and run my hand over my face. “They didn’t talk that I know of, but Morgan was shit-faced on tequila.”

  She groans. “That explains the selfie he sent me early this morning of him and Jelly Bean in the barn.”

  “Please tell me he wasn’t naked.”

  She blinks.

  “Goddamn him.”

  Lillian leaves, and I hear Kacy’s laughter in the office and immediately smile. This buys me a week, at most. Now I need to think about getting her alone.

  I can’t live a lie

  KACY

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Lillian sighs next to me. “I feel like a total shit for what I did that night, and the thing is, I actually liked Carly. I just didn’t want her married to Morgan.”

  “I met her last night, and she wasn’t very nice to me.”

  “She’s probably just angry at him. And me.”

  “Were you friend’s with her?”

  “No. Not really. I mean, we said hello and were friendly, but it wasn’t like I hung out with her.”

  Lillian’s confiding in me. Something we’ve done a few times over the last two days we’ve spent in this office together. And you know, I could see myself being friends with her. In my fucked-up fairy-tale life I think I’m living here in this town, I’ve already befriended her. Lillian Taylor, five foot nothing, green-eyed beauty with long blonde curls, I want to be friends with her. I picture myself sitting on a porch with her watching our babies play. It’s natural, as if that should be my life, not one where my presence here is complicated. I can’t place what it is, but I feel like I crashed into this building for a reason, regardless of my lie.

  “I know him,” I blurt to Lillian. I say it so fast I’m not sure she hears me correctly. I couldn’t take it anymore. Someone had to know, and it’s Lillian.

  Lillian blinks. Steadily. “Morgan?” Her eyes move to the kids playing in the drive of the shop with Jace, Barron, and Rhett. They’re in the midst of a snowball fight when I lay this information on her.

  “No. Barron.”

  “What?”

  I can’t tear my eyes away from him. “I know him, or I mean, I knew of him.”

  She searches my eyes, her brow drawn together as she cups the warm coffee in her hands. “I’m not following you.”

  I can’t keep this in any longer. “I… know his wife.”

  Lillian’s eyes widen, a gasp leaving her lips. “Tara?”

  I nod, fear pricking my skin. I feel like Sev and her itching. I fight through the urges to itch everywhere as my entire body breaks out in a sweat. “What do I do?”

  “How do you know Tara?”

  “I worked for her. I was a personal assistant, got the job because of my mom, and then that turned into me basically being Tara’s bitch for the last year. And then I quit and left town, intending to drive south. Anywhere. I had this vision of myself living in the South somewhere with sweet tea and guys who call you ma’am instead of Monday because you’re the chick he fucks on Monday. So I quit my job, packed my shit, and left.”

  She sips her coffee. “What? Monday… that’s like a thing?”

  “In California, yes.” I wave my hand around. “But that’s not the point. I didn’t know where he lived. Like his address. I didn’t memorize it or anything, and I certainly didn’t leave California to find him. I worked for Tara, yes, and I knew that she was married before, had kids but left. She made it sound like he was the worst husband and trapped her in a marriage.”

  “Hardly.” Lillian glares. “What a lying bitch and fucked him over completely. Sev was only three weeks old when she left.”

  “Yeah, I knew she was lying because it’s Tara, but I swear, I didn’t know where Barron lived. I didn’t intentionally crash my car into the building. If anything, fate was like, hey, he’s right here. The one you’ve been looking your whole life for.”

  “That’s sorta romantic. Sounds better than sleeping with a married man.” I think she believes me, but there’s a certain amount of apprehension on her face. Barron’s her friend. I can tell that much.

  “Technically Barron’s still married,” I point out, knowing he hasn’t signed the divorce papers.

  “True. But at least he wasn’t living with her. So, how’d you end up in Amarillo then?”

  I recall the night being pulled over and all the Dr. Pepper I drank. “I pulled off the highway to find a bathroom, and then the snowstorm hit. I was on the ranch roads trying to read a damn map, and before I knew it, Buck committed suicide, and bam, Barron Grady entered my life.”

  There’s a smile on her face now. She’s clearly not seeing the gravity of the situation. “See… that’s romantic if you think about it.”

  “Uh, no, it’s not.” Fear pricks my skin again, and I can sense the heat rising from my chest to my cheeks. I shouldn’t have worn a sweater. I’m dying of heat exhaustion now. “He�
�s going to be mad, isn’t he?”

  “Knowing Barron, no.” Lillian sets her coffee cup down and looks over at the phone ringing. “Not if you tell him.”

  “How am I going to tell him that?”

  “I don’t know, but you need to. If he finds out otherwise, he might not be so forgiving.”

  My heart takes a plummet to my knees. “I need to leave before he finds out.”

  Her eyes widen. “No, don’t leave. Don’t do that to him. Just tell him.”

  Just as I’m thinking of a plan to tell him, he comes inside the office, snow in his hair and my heart in his hands. I don’t know how it happened. Or when the lie became something I couldn’t right, but looking at him now, those charming dark eyes, I can’t tell him.

  “Parts should be here by Friday.”

  Somehow I got lost in the dream of thinking I belonged here and stare at him long enough he probably thinks I’m crazy. Anxiety swallows me. I hoped it’d take longer, and by the look on his face, he wants that too. “I should probably get a hotel room in Amarillo. I hate being a burden to you and the girls.”

  “You’re not.” And then he smiles, penetrating my will, including the ones begging me to right the lie before it ends this. Knee deep in the haze of him, I feel our souls grabbing at one another. Begging us to listen. And when I stare into his eyes, it’s as if my heart is screaming at me. Look here, listen up, it’s this one. The one we’ve been searching for.

  Of all the times for parts to be on time.

  BARRON

  I have to think of another way to draw this out longer. Friday is coming too fast. But, I also have work to do. It’s easy to forget you have a job when pussy is all you can think of. I do get some work done though. It takes up the majority of the day. With the help of the guys, we get the side of the building repaired too. Which is nice because it’s fourteen degrees outside and having a hole in the building is inconvenient.

  As I’m packing up for the day, Camdyn comes into the shop with bright red lips. “Hi, Daddy.”

  I glance down at her, confused. “Why are your lips red?”

  She shrugs. “I found Kacy’s lipstick.”

  I lean into the side of my toolbox, fighting off laughter. “And you thought you’d put it on?”

  “I look pretty.”

  “You look like Aerosmith.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The Joker from Batman’s brother.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. Go wash your face before we leave.”

  She leaves and I shake my head. Jace approaches, grinning. “Why does Camdyn have lipstick all over her face?”

  I hand him a repair order for the backhoe in his stall. “She got into Kacy’s lipstick.”

  Tipping his hat with grease smeared all over his face, he glances at the repair order and then me again. “Hmm. You know what they say about red lipstick.”

  “No. What do they say?” I stare at his hair oil-soaked hair. “And why are you covered in oil?”

  “Slutty.” He winks, stepping back away from me. “Oil was hot when it came out and soaked me.”

  I know he’s talking about changing the oil in the backhoe, but I laugh, thinking it’s fitting. “She’s not slutty.”

  A gruff laugh rumbles through him. “You don’t know anything about her.”

  “Not true,” I point out. “Her dad’s the drummer for Final Code.”

  He stares at me blankly. “No shit?”

  “Yep.” I gesture to his phone in his other hand. “Did you call Abbi?”

  “No,” he mumbles, his voice barely heard of the sharp ping of a revving two-stroke sound in the shop.

  I turn to see Rhett on the mini bike. “You’re going to let her marry that pediatrician?”

  He shrugs, watchful of Rhett riding through the shop on a mini bike with Sev. At least she’s wearing a helmet. “Dude, do something. The wedding is coming up.”

  “I have plenty of time. It’s not for a couple months.”

  “Still….”

  “Still what?”

  “I don’t know. Just do something or you’re going to be miserable.”

  He reaches for a towel on my toolbox and wipes his face. “You’re one to talk.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re miserable.”

  He has a point. “Which is why I’m telling you to do something. Don’t be like me. What does Josie say?” Josie is Jace’s twin sister. She’s also best friends with Abbi and has no idea that Abbi and Jace had been fucking each other all through high school. How, I’m not sure.

  “Nothing. She’s too caught up in planning her best friend’s wedding to know I’m losing my shit over it.”

  “You could have said something before she left,” I point out.

  He clicks his tongue and throws the towel he had at my face. “And you could fuck that girl in there and marry her, but you probably won’t because you’re a pussy.”

  I shoot him a warning look, partly because he’s right, and the other, obviously. “I sign your paychecks, asshole.”

  “Whatever.” Sighing, he pockets his cell phone and then leaves. I think about what he said. I’m miserable. Am I? I’ve spent the last three years raising kids and working my ass off. I wouldn’t say I’m miserable, but these last few days with Kacy have proven to me that I don’t have much of a life outside of my kids.

  Or privacy.

  All that gets me thinking about ways to get Kacy to stay longer. And not get a hotel room.

  The day I had kids was the day they became my allies for lying. It’s called parent code. Look it up. It’s a thing. I shouldn’t have to ask them to lie for me. They’re my kids. I can make them do what I want. And that includes lying for me.

  I also knew after the tire incident Camdyn would be no help. Damn kid had a conscience.

  Sev, on the other hand, she tried to cut my hair with a knife the other day. She doesn’t give a fuck about consequences.

  With her sweaty hair matted to her face and smelling like gasoline, I level Sev a serious look, hoping she picks up on it. “What’s the one thing you want more than anything in the world?”

  Her eyes widen. “A sword.”

  “Done.” Don’t freak out. I never said it’d be a real one.

  She holds out her hand to shake mine. “Done.”

  “Now act like you broke your ankle.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Limp.”

  “Like this?”

  “No. I mean like Nana Mel when she threw her back out.” She tries again, and it looks as if someone detached her leg from her body. “What are you doing? I said, your ankle. Not your hip.”

  She throws her hands up in the air. “Where’s my ankle?”

  “There.”

  She points to her hip. “I thought dis is.”

  “What the fuck have they been teaching you in school?”

  “I not go to school.”

  “Right. So this is your elbow.” I tickle her elbow and then slide my hand to hers. “Hand.” I touch her hip playfully. “That’s your hip and this is your knee. And this, crazy, is your ankle.”

  “Got it.” She cackles, trying to pry herself from my arms. “Stop, Daddy. That tickles.” When I don’t stop, she squishes my cheeks together so hard it actually pinches. “Stop.”

  “Now, help me steal this battery.” I point to the door. “Don’t let anyone come through that door, and then act like you hurt yourself.”

  “Deal.”

  While Sev watches the door to the office, I take the battery out of Kacy’s car, hide it in the parts room, and then carry Sev into the office. “Little girl hurt her ankle.”

  Immediate attention from Kacy and Lillian. “Oh no.” Kacy reaches for her. “What happened?” So clueless. Or she’s playing dumb for the sake of letting me have my fun. I don’t know.

  Sev immediately goes to Kacy, resting her head on her shoulders. If you look close enough, you can see the smirk
she’s keeping at bay.

  “I need to order a battery too,” I tell Kacy, kissing Sev’s forehead, inches from Kacy’s face. There’s a good part of me that nearly kisses her too. But I don’t. “It’s missing.”

  She raises an eyebrow, her breathing picking up at my proximity. “Missing?”

  “Yep.”

  Lillian rolls her eyes. “Guess I’ll add that to the parts list.”

  “Weird.” Kacy watches me. “It was there the other day, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah. But it’s not now.” I play dumb, fighting the urge to stick my tongue out again at Lillian and rub Sev’s back. “Someone could have stolen it.”

  “Do you have problems with theft here?”

  Lillian speaks up, scowling at me as she types on the computer. “Lately.”

  I think Kacy sees through my lie, but then she hits me with it. “I got a room in Amarillo. Could you give me a ride?”

  I nod but give her no words.

  What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Fuck that. She’s not leaving. I’m not letting her. I’m going to tie her to my bed. That’s illegal and uncomfortable. I’ve been there before, but I have to think of something and fast.

  Once you go Texas, you never go back.

  KACY

  “You didn’t need to get a room,” he tells me once we’re back at his house. He says he wants to take the girls home first, and I agree because, like it or not, I don’t want to leave, and the more time spent with him, the greedier I get. “I don’t mind you staying here.”

  Oh God. What do I say? I really truly do not want to leave, but I’m so afraid that me staying is going to cause problems for him and the girls. “Because.” I can feel the lie on the tip of my tongue, and I know I should tell him how I know him, but I can’t, so I spit out whatever it is rattling around in my mouth. “You have a life here, Barron. I’m just some girl that crashed into your shop.” I can’t make eye contact with him. I can barely breathe. What the fuck is this feeling constricting my throat? And it feels like I snorted hot sauce.

  “You’re not just a girl who crashed into my shop,” he assures me, as if this was stupid of me to say.