Page 49 of Untamed Heart

The past month with Roe and Cassi had been heaven, and in that time, I’d gone from adoring his little girl to completely and totally falling in love with her.

“I remember Kota. Only hit him if hereallydeserves it.”

That wasn’t exactly the lesson I tried teaching her, but it was close enough. I was struggling to suppress my laughter. “Just... try really hard not to get kicked out, okay?”

I watched in the rearview mirror as she lifted her shoulder in a cavalier shrug. “I gotta do what I gotta do. I can’t help it if Bobby’s parents didn’t teach him manners.”

Valid point. But I wasn’t going to say that out loud.

I pulled up to the drop-off for Cassi’s wildlife camp and watched with a smile as she hopped out of the car and raced to her friends. Her riding goggles and tiara tangled in her glitter braids were an interesting choice, but like everything else, she made it work.

“Have a good day, sweetie,” I called out through my rolled-down window.

She spun around and waved her hand high in the air, beaming at me. I didn’t know how Roe had handled drop-offs like this all these years, especially by himself, because each time she hopped out of my car it became harder to drive off without her.

A horn honked behind me, and I lifted my hand in an apologetic wave to the car that was trying to drop off their kid as well. While my girl enjoyed her day in the wilderness—something she was growing to love more every day—I headed to the grocery store in town. Cassi’s party was coming up in a couple weeks. She’d requested a stars and galaxy theme, and I was determined to make her the prettiest, tastiest star-shaped cake no matter what.

She settled on that theme after I explained my love of stargazing to her, and how I passed that passion down to her dad. Since then, she’d joined me in Roe’s backyard countless times, lying right by my side on a blanket in the cool grass as I helped her discover constellations in the sky. Knowing that I’d managed to pass down my love to her made my heart swell so big it sometimes ached.

Roe was working at the garage on some custom art pieces that were going to be painted on a couple motorcycles theywere working on, and Dad was hanging at the diner with Bea—something he’d been doing with great frequency over the past month—so I headed to my house to start working on the design for Cassi’s cake, knowing I’d get at least a few hours of uninterrupted work before the girls came over later to help me film some content. Lennon, and especially Iris, had really gotten into helping me out, so now my filming days were like little parties.

They’d come over, work the camera for me, then partake in the food I cooked. Usually over a glass of wine or a mimosa.

I’d fallen into a routine I absolutely loved. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so many people I cared about in my life. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to it. Not that I wanted to. It made appreciating what I had that much easier.

My phone rang on the counter as I stirred edible silver glitter into the icing to give it that shiny galactic look. Licking a dollop of butter cream off my thumb, I grinned at the name flashing across the screen and swiped to answer.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

Roe’s laughter carried through the line and warmed my insides. “Work is being done, I swear. I had to stop and give you a call because I was missin’ you something crazy.”

Oh, did I know the feeling. Since getting back together, it was hard to shake the need to spend every waking minute with the man who carried my heart in his hands. I wanted to be with him as often as possible. Fortunately, he felt exactly the same.

“Well, I miss you too, honey. But we just saw each other this morning, and we’ll see each other again this evening.”

“Yeah, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough,” he tacked on, sounding almost grumpy about the fact we couldn’t be attached at the hip twenty-four/seven.

“I get that, and any other time I’d be happy to stay on the phone with you, but I’m working on a very special, superimportant project right now, and I need to give it all my attention.”

“Cassi’s birthday cake?” he asked.

“Like I said, super important.”

“All right then, Honeybee. I’ll let you go.”

“Just for a little while. I love you, Roe.”

He let out a groan every time I said those words, like hearing them was the biggest turn-on for him. If we were together and Cassi wasn’t around, it never failed that telling him I loved him led to earth-shaking sex.

“I love you too baby. More than you’ll ever know.”

We ended the call and I went back to work, adding the silvery frosting to a piping bag only to be disrupted again.

On a laugh, I snatched the phone and answered the call without looking at the screen. “You know, if you keep calling like this, neither of us will ever get anything done.”

“Hello, Koty. It’s been a while.”

All the blood in my body turned to ice as I pulled the phone from my ear and looked at the screen that readUnknown Caller.“Adam? How did you get this number?” I’d made certain to have my number changed after I left him. Not wanting him to be able to get ahold of me. “You know what? It doesn’t even matter. I’m hanging up.”