Then she unpressed her lips and whispered, “You never do.”
“I like this guy less,” Mitch informed her.
Mara’s shoulders started shaking as her eyes continued dancing and she pressed her lips together again.
“And also, you need to have a word with her about those f**kin’ shorts,” Mitch went on.
Mara’s entire body started shaking.
“I’m not jokin’,” he whispered.
“You never are,” she whispered back.
No, he never was. When Billie hit fifteen what Mara called The Battle of Skin commenced. Mitch thought Billie exposed too much. Billie disagreed. Mara waded in explaining to Mitch that he was overprotective. Mitch explained to Mara that was his job. Mara told Mitch to relax. Mitch told Mara it wasn’t his job to relax; it was his job not to let his girl leave the house exposing too much skin seeing as he was a guy and he knew what guys had in their heads. Especially at fifteen. And sixteen. And, like Billie’s most recent, twenty-one.
Mitch lost a lot. Women, he found, since his f**king house was full of them, ganged up on you. They also had staying power. It was worth the effort but it wasn’t worth the headache you got in the long run. So he always gave the effort but he usually gave in.
Billie was nineteen, he got that. But his girl would be forty and he’d always give a shit.
About everything.
“We’re here!” Billie cried then sat her ass down in the empty seat beside Mara while whatever-the-fuck-his-name-was (Mitch didn’t trouble himself with remembering them, he’d learned that early) sat next to her. His girl’s eyes came right to him. “And, Mitch, it wasn’t Ridge’s fault we were late. It was mine.”
Ridge.
Right. The kid’s name was Ridge.
Fuck.
Who named their kid Ridge?
“Dad! Mom! Shift! I wanna sit by Billie!”
Mitch turned to his daughter who was sitting next to him.
His ten year old Faith was Billie cloned. Lots of energy. Lots of smiles. Lots of laughter. Lots of love. In five years, Mitch would hit a new level of hell when she realized she was beautiful, had a fantastic figure and the power to toy with men at her whim.
“Good, I wanna sit by Daddy,” he heard this said softly and his eyes moved from the dark-haired, blue-eyed Faith to the seat next to her where his eight year old, dark-haired, brown-eyed Marcie sat.
Marcie looked like her father but she acted like her mother. Sweet. Shy. Smart. Quiet. Loyal. Unconsciously funny. And clueless to just how beautiful she was and how much love she provoked.
He loved his Faith but Faith grew up two years ago.
Marcie was his little girl and always would be.
They shifted and Faith got her spot by her adored Billie. They immediately commenced conniving, heads close and Mitch figured Billie was sharing how to break men’s hearts. A skill, incidentally, she’d been honing also since she was fifteen.
The only hope Mitch had was that Ridge’s days were numbered.
They always were.
Mitch sighed and put his arm around Marcie.
Her eyes were on the field.
“It’s gonna start soon,” she whispered.
Her excitement was in her long legs which were swinging. It was also in her voice.