Heartless: A Small Town Single Dad Romance(11)

Big Ray-Ban aviators sit on her nose, and her coppery hair is wild and wavy around her

shoulders. It frames her delicate face like dancing flames. A wisp of it blows across her lips.

The lips that are all glossy and tipped up in a smirk.

“You’re early,” I growl, because I don’t know what else to say. I can’t peel my eyes off of her, even though I want to. Even though she’s not at all my type at this point in my life.

She has city girl written all over her. She has wild child written all over her. She’s not some sweet, small-town girl.

She’s the girl who told me she’d be ready for me to inspect her undergarments and didn’t think twice about it.

She has temptation written all over her.

But she doesn’t act like it, instead she shrugs and pulls her sunglasses off her face, pinning me with her emerald eyes. The kind of eyes that stop you in your tracks.

If nothing else, Willa Grant is a stunner.

Too young for me. Too unpredictable for me.

But a stunner all the same.

“I was excited to get out here.”

I blink at her because, well, what am I supposed to say to that? I’m here counting all the ways in which she’s a problem for me, and she’s just excited to be here and take care of my child.

Maybe I am the asshole everyone tells me I am.

“Willa!” Luke comes tearing out of the house like a bat out of hell, socked feet straight down the dirt path and onto the gravel driveway. He knows better but hasn’t stopped talking about Willa since she left yesterday. Poor kid is so starved for female attention that all someone needs to do is climb a tree with him and he has them up on a pedestal.

He comes to a screeching halt in front of her. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

Willa laughs, all pretty and sexy, with a little rasp—like she smokes or something. And I’m wondering if she does. I didn’t ask her if she smokes.

She crouches in front of him and ruffles his soft hair. “I’m so glad to be here. We’re going to have the best summer.”

“What are we going to do?” His eyes go all sparkly, excitement pouring off him.

“Everything,” she replies, waving a hand in a wide arc. “All the things.”

My brows furrow from their own fruition. I want Luke to have fun, but not too much fun.

She reads my expression because her eyes twinkle with amusement. “Cliff diving. Bull riding. I’ll even teach you how to shotgun a beer.”

I shake my head at her as my lips flatten, already seeing my peaceful summer swirling down the drain.

She’s going to drive me up the fucking wall.

Luke’s nose wrinkles. “Beer is gross.”

She just laughs again. “Smart answer, kid. I’m just joking. But I have lots of fun ideas. Help me get my suitcase inside?”

“Of course!” my son’s sugary voice exclaims as he slides his hand into hers without hesitation.

I groan and stride down the stairs, covering the ground quickly to reach the back of her Jeep at the same time they do. Holding a hand up to stop them, I grumble, “I’ve got this.”

“Very chivalrous. Thank you, Mr. Eaton.”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek. Mr. Eaton. That makes me feel like an old perv.

Or like my dad. Which is possibly the same thing.

But I don’t correct her, because the old perv part of me likes it. Instead, I open the back hatch and



pull out her massive suitcase.

“I want to show you my room!” Luke says, like an excited squirrel with a nut that can’t figure out where to put it.

It’s honestly kind of endearing.

I heave the suitcase out just in time to watch them walk hand in hand into my house, and for some reason, I stop and watch. Unable to look away. Lots of people have walked through that front door.

But somehow this feels different.

“In bed by eight.”

Willa nods, face perfectly serious even though I’m pretty sure there’s a part of her that’s mocking me. “Okay.”

We’re sitting across from each other at the white oval table in my living room, facing off now that Luke is asleep for the night. Willa has crossed her forearms over each other, and I’m still trying to steal glimpses of her skin through the hole in her T-shirt.

“No sugar after dinner.”

She rears back, eyes widening. “Not even dessert?” She sounds like I’ve just told her I kick puppies or something.

“Not on weeknights.”

“You rule with an iron fist, Daddy Eaton.”

I groan, cheeks pinching up in distaste. “That’s what we call my dad.”

A silent puff of air slips from her lips, the bottom one more full than the top. “Daddy Cade it is.”

I’m not sure what I did to deserve this torture, but it must be something terrible. I like to think I’ve lived a straight and narrow sort of life, yet I’ve been handed heartache after heartache, challenge after challenge. It seems like the universe could have granted some sort of reprieve.

But it granted me Willa fucking Grant.

“No.”

She smirks and tilts her head in challenge.

“You’ll send me text message updates throughout the day so that I don’t worry. Keep me apprised of your activities.”