Page 35 of Untamed Heart

“And you should take me with you when you deliver it to her. I can tell her all the great things about you! Like, how you give the best night-night hugs, and how you’re the best at tuckin’ me in, and how you draw me pretty pictures to hang up on my walls. Plus, like,everyoneloves me. She will too, so she’ll totally believe me when I tell her all the awesome stuff about you.”

I pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. The love I felt for this girl was so strong it sometimes felt like it was going to consume me. “You’d really do that for your old man, little star?”

Cassi turned to face me, reaching her tiny hands up to cup both my cheeks. “Of course I would. You’re the best daddy in the whole wide world.”

I hugged her tight, my heart swelling so big in my chest there wasn’t room for anything else. “If I’m the best daddy in the world, it’s only because I was lucky enough to have the best daughter ever born.”

My girl rolled her eyes and turned back around to hit play on Dakota’s video. “Duh, Dad. I’m the bestest.”

The following night, my need to see Dakota grew so strong I couldn’t ignore it any longer. After another club meeting, instead of heading home to relieve my babysitter, I turned my bike toward Redemption and parked across the street from the inn. The curtains on Dakota’s windows were closed, but I could still make out her silhouette as she moved about the room. I was obsessed and that brief glimpse of shadow was enough to sustain me for the time being.

“You going to keep skulking around here in the dark, or you think you’ll work up the nerve to actually knock on that door one of these days?”

I glanced over my shoulder and found Poppy standing behind me, a shit-eating grin on her face. “I’m building up to it.”

She moved closer, her shoes scuffing across the asphalt as she closed the distance between us. “I haven’t known you to need to build up to anything.”

I’d met Poppy and her crew a few years ago. The local watering hole, Bad Alibi, was a place we liked to hit up when we wanted a change of scenery and didn’t mind driving a half hour to another town for it. We all loved Toni’s Tavern, but Bad Alibi had a badass old western saloon vibe going. Some of her crew knew some of the Wraiths, so it wasn’t unheard of for us to catch up with each other whenever we hit their town for a few drinks. Then, not long after, some of our club shit spilled over into Redemption while Pope and I were in the midst of cleaning things up and taking us legit. We had to ride into town to handle that, and it kind of tied the two groups together.

“She’s the exception.”

Poppy gave me a knowing look. “Ah, I see.”

I arched a brow and cut my eyes in her direction. “See what?”

“That you’re totally sprung,” she teased. “You know, I always thought you were a playboy because you couldn’t be bothered to settle down. But that’s not it at all, is it? You’re in love with her.”

Denying it would have been a bold-faced lie, so I didn’t bother. “It’s complicated.”

“You know, she said the same thing to me not long ago.”

My head whipped around in her direction. “She told you about me?”

Poppy lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “Not in depth, but enough for me to get the sense something really serious used to be between you guys.”

I wondered if the pain of the decision I made all those years ago would ever stop hurting, but I seriously doubted it. “I hurt her, Pop. I hurt her so bad. There hasn’t been a day of my adult life where I haven’t loved that woman with everything in me. But I don’t know if I can ever make what I did right.”

She gave me a sympathetic smile, and even that was enough for me to understand exactly why her man, Jase, was so obsessed with her. The woman was beautiful. Not on Dakota’s level, of course. Then again, no woman was. But it would have been a lie to say she hadn’t turned my head a time or two in the past.

“Oh, honey.” Her hand came down on my bicep, her fingers squeezing gently. “You won’t find out sitting out here on your bike, staring at a window. Only way you’ll know if you can fix things is to go over there and try.”

It was basically the same advice my daughter had given me the day before. And hearing another version of it bolstered my confidence.

They were both right. It was time to quit fucking around and start acting. Because I wouldn’t know if she’d ever find it in her to give me a second chance if I didn’t ask for one.

EIGHTEEN

ROE

Operation Win Dakota Backstarted bright and early the next day. I knew Pops was being released, and Dakota was planning on coming to pick him up, so I made sure me and my girl were there first so we could put our plan into action.

Like I said, I wasn’t above fighting dirty.

So let the games begin.

Dakota

The elevator dinged, the doors sliding open on my father’s floor. I smiled, waving at the nurses sitting at the nursing station who had become familiar over the past weeks. “Hi, ladies. Good day so far?”