he left her his house. I took over his estate from Tanner.”
Tanner Abernathy and I had never gotten along. He was a pompous, arrogant, bully whose daddy always cleaned up his messes. But even Jennings Abernathy couldn’t keep his son from being disbarred on the grounds of moral ineptitude. Tanner had been in and out of rehab a half dozen times mainly for DUIs. But he’d really gone off the rails once he started doing coke.
Reagan worked for Abernathy at his family law firm. We’d suspected that Jennings might be Cheyenne’s biological father, but it turned out he wasn’t. So the mystery continued.
“Anyway, just wanted to give you a heads up that you weren’t all alone out here anymore.” Reagan climbed into her car and waved.
“Looks like your gonna have to stop gardenin’ in the nude,” Jimmy teased before backing out.
As I watched my family drive away, I felt something that I didn’t quite recognize. It took me a second to realize that it was loneliness. Which made no sense. This was what I’d been working toward since I was a teenager. No responsibilities. Everyone grown and taking care of themselves.
So why did I feel like something was missing?
CHAPTER 4
Skylar
“It was no bother.”
A shiver raced down my spine as I placed a freshly laundered towel on the rack for Luna.
How could the sound of a voice be so ridiculously sexy?
Every single time I thought about the deep vibrato my body quivered. It had been happening all day, distracting me from the menial but necessary tasks I needed to perform such as cleaning, unpacking, and mothering.
I may not have been able to see what Hank looked like, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t left an impression on me. He had. His voice and presence had imprinted on my psyche, on my being. I didn’t have to know what he looked like to be attracted to the man. Pheromones apparently did not need any visual stimulation.
It didn’t help that I wasn’t the only Thompson female who he’d left an impression on. Luna had not stopped talking about the blurry mammoth-sized stranger since we got home. She’d asked more questions about Mr. Hank than I could count.
“Does Mr. Hank like macaroni and cheese?”
It was Luna’s favorite.
“What is Mr. Hank’s favorite color?”
Luna’s favorite color was sparkle pink. When she asked if I thought that might be Mr. Hanks, I didn’t have the heart to tell her no. Although, I did not think Mr. Hank’s favorite color was sparkle pink.
“Is Mr. Hank afraid of the dark?”
Luna could not sleep without a night light. But thinking of Mr. Hank in the dark sent my mind down an R-rated rabbit hole about things Mr. Hank might do in the dark.
“What time is Mr. Hank’s bedtime?”
I didn’t have a clue…but I sure wouldn’t mind tucking him in.
As the day had worn on my mind began making inappropriate detours whenever Luna asked an innocent question.
Trying to refocus my mind, I left the bathroom where Luna was finishing up her much-needed bath and went to her room. I picked up her discarded clothes off her floor. My hand reached in the pocket, something I’d been trained to do after I accidentally washed my iPod that Luna had put in her pocket unbeknownst to me. When I felt something crinkle I pulled it out expecting to find leaves, or maybe a piece of paper. But instead, I found money. Cold hard cash.
I went to my purse and checked my wallet. I knew that all I had was the $32 that had been in my purse before discovering my bank accounts were drained. It was all still there.
“Lu Lu!” I called out as I walked into the bathroom where she sat in waist-high sudsy water with shampoo-filled hair. “Where did you get this money?”
“Mr. Hank gave it to me.”
My stomach dropped and fear gripped me. “What? Why?”
“I told you, I was a Girl Scout.”
“I thought that was a game. That you were playing Girl Scout.”
She didn’t have any cookies to sell. All we had was half a box of Goldfish crackers until I went to the grocery store tomorrow.
“I was helping, Momma.” She couldn’t look prouder of her achievement and I knew that I was going to have to be the bad guy and tell her that we had to take the money back. “I saw you crying when you went to the bank.”
I’d thought she hadn’t noticed my tears but I should have known better. When Luna was two, my pediatrician