Daddy in Cowboy Boots (Montana Daddies #9) - Laylah Roberts Page 0,125

quiet about the role he and his people had played in everything. And she didn’t want to know, frankly.

Tiger had disappeared. She guessed Markovich had taken care of him. Sometimes she still felt some guilt over it, but then Linc reminded her of everything Tiger had done. That he likely would have gone on to hurt other women and she didn’t feel so bad.

It was less than three weeks until Christmas and Linc had brought her down to Houston for a break from the Montana winter. She loved the snow. But she was struggling with how cold it was. Linc had banned her from leaving the house without him, because she’d gotten a cold a few weeks back when she’d been making snowmen and stayed out too long.

He’d gone into protective overdrive. She’d found herself in bed for a week. And as soon he’d declared her well, she’d ended up over his knee, getting paddled.

Last night they’d gone out for some Venezuelan street food. She hadn’t eaten arepas since Ana had made them for her. They’d been delicious.

She attempted the ring toss, pouting as most of them missed. “I’m no good at this.”

“You can’t be good at everything. Let Daddy have a try.”

She glanced over at the attendant to see if he was paying attention, but he was more interested in his phone than the two of them.

Linc started tossing out rings, getting each one over the bottles. She clapped her hands and cheered excitedly.

“Well done, sir. You can choose anything from the top row.”

“The gorilla! The gorilla!”

“That’s going to be interesting to get home on the plane,” Linc said dryly as the attendant handed over the pink gorilla which was nearly as big as Marisol was.

“We might have to buy him his own seat,” she said with a giggle, hugging him tight. “Can we go have a corn dog, Daddy?”

He grimaced but nodded. “All right.”

Linc kept a close eye on her diet, but he wasn’t an ogre about it. And she liked that she had freedom, but she still knew he was watching over her. He could be far stricter about other things. Like her walking around while reading. She’d done that just this morning in the hotel suite when she’d thought he was in the shower. She’d just needed to finish beta reading Caley’s latest story. She hadn’t been looking where she was going and had ended up walking right into Linc.

Then she’d ended up over his knee, getting spanked. Afterwards, she’d had to sit on her hot ass and write fifty times, that she would not walk while reading.

Caley had hired her on as her assistant. She just worked in the mornings for her. Then in the afternoons, she read. Or if Linc was home, she crafted or played. Often times, he’d come home for lunch then put her down for a nap afterwards.

As they walked towards the corn dog stand, she slowed then stopped. There was something about the man ahead of them. He was walking towards them, watching her intently.

His dark hair was sprinkled liberally with gray. He had a handsome face. One of those men that got better looking as they aged. He wore a neatly pressed shirt and slacks. His clothes seemed too formal for a fair. And yet, he wasn’t exactly out of place.

As he drew closer, she gasped then looked up at Linc.

“I wasn’t sure whether to tell you,” Linc said quietly to her. “Don’t be mad at me.”

“You found him?”

“Yeah, baby. I didn’t want to let you know until I’d talked to him.”

He meant he’d wanted to make sure that Harry wasn’t going to hurt Marisol.

“He wants to see me,” she stated.

“Baby, as soon as I told him everything Rosalind revealed to us, he wanted to be on the first plane to Montana. Then when I told him about your life with her, well, he thought that you wouldn’t want to see him.”

Harry had stopped by now, he was watching them, obviously waiting for her to come to him.

“What?” she gasped. “Of course I want to see him.”

“He thinks you might be upset with him. Angry that he didn’t fight harder for you. That he took Rosalind’s word that you wanted nothing to do with him.”

“She told him that?” Pain lashed at her insides.

“Yep. She did her best to keep the two of you apart. But you have the opportunity to be together now. Go to him, baby. He’s hurting as much as you. If not more. He has a lot of guilt.”

She stepped forward, shaky at first but then as she grew closer to Harry, she gathered up speed and threw herself at him. He opened his arms, catching her, pulling her tight against him and rocking her gently.

“Oh, my girl. My darling girl.”

He even smelled the same. Sounded the same. He still had that accent.

She pulled back and looked up at him, tears dripping down her cheeks. “Harry.”

He ran his hand over her hair. “Look how beautiful you are. My precious girl. I’m so sorry. So sorry I left you with that viper.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was,” he insisted. “I listened to her lies. I shouldn’t have. I thought about finding you so many times. I sent investigators to check on you, but they always said you were fine.”

“She never did anything to me in public.”

He closed his eyes in pain. “I’m so sorry, banana. So sorry.”

She giggled at the old nickname, given to her because she’d gone through a stage of only wanting to eat bananas and nothing else. Harry had had their housekeeper make her all sorts of banana concoctions.

“I should have checked in on you myself. But it hurt too much to see you. I love you so much, banana.”

“Love you too, Harry. I’ve missed you.”

“Well, maybe we can make up for lost time, huh?” he asked.

She smiled, tears streaming down her face. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Harry looked over and she turned to see Linc approach with a smile. Harry moved her to his side as he reached out his hand. “You must be Linc.”

Linc shook his hand. “Sir.”

“None of that. Call me Harry. If you’re with my girl then you’re part of my family.”

She closed her eyes with contentment. The missing part of her heart was here. Maybe she hadn’t seen him for years. Maybe he had changed, although it didn’t seem that way to her. But even so, she wanted to know him. She wanted him in her life, even if it was just in a small way. She looked from Harry to Linc as they chatted.

Life with Linc was amazing. Not perfect. But pretty damn close.

And she wanted it noted, that staying with him was the best decision she’d ever made.