Released (Devil's Blaze MC #3)(57)

Skull grins at her. “Mi hija is demanding me, mi amor.”

He winks. I shake my head as he goes and plays with our daughter. It’s been a week since I’ve shown him my scars, and each day, he proves even more that they don’t matter to him. It’s been a week, and I feel like finally everything is going to be okay. A week of nothing but… happiness.

I go over to sit beside Gabby and help them play in the sandbox that Skull brought. It’s in the shape of a turtle, and it was all he could do to fit it in the back of the truck. Then, when we arrived here, he added the bags of sand he kept in the back.

“Can I ask what you’re planning to do when she wants the sandbox at home?”

Skull turns the bucket upside-down to show the beginnings of the castle he and Gabby are building. “Make sure it’s at home for her, mi cielo. What else?”

What else? I shake my head at his simple answer. I have a feeling that if Gabby asked for the moon, he’d find a way to give it to her. Now that Skull and I have finally worked through our issues from the past, he’s much softer around Gabby. Gentler, even. She’s sensed the change and the difference in how they interact is night and day.

We play for an hour until Gabby’s laughter slowly changes to yawns, then we lay back on the quilt we brought and stare up at the sky, making shapes out of the clouds. Soon Gabby is sound asleep, snuggled between us. My hand goes to my stomach in sadness. I had hoped I was pregnant when Skull mentioned how he hadn’t been using a condom, but I started my period a couple of days ago. No baby.

“It will happen, querida,” Skull’s deep timbre whispers against my skin, and I look up at him. He’s smiling at me, even as his hand clasps mine and rests on my stomach.

“I want a sister for Gabby so she has someone who is always there for her, like I have with Katie.”

“God help me,” he says with a smile.

“I’d be offended … but I think you like my sister.”

“I plead the fifth.”

“Mmm…hmm...”

“Querida, I hope you don’t take this wrong, but I’m hoping our next child is a son. It’s going to be a fulltime job to keep men away from Gabby as it is.”

“Good luck with that,” I say, then laugh. I sit up to adjust a small blanket over Gabby. That’s when I notice she’s wearing the hair bow with the mini nanny cam in it. I just assumed that Katie had taken it out, but I can see it clearly. Actually, I’m sure she told me she did, which means she put it back in for today. She’s spying on me and Skull. “That bitch!”

“Querida?”

“I’m going to kill my sister. She’s spying on us!”

“Beth?” Skull asks, still confused.

I gently disengage the hair bow from Gabby’s dark hair to show Skull.

“When we wanted to know what you guys had found out about Colin and Matthew, Katie put this little pinpoint camera in Gabby’s hair bow. It’s a little better than a voice recorder, so when you took her into the meeting, we would know what you were discussing.”

“You what?” he growls.

“We had to know what you were talking about and you wouldn’t tell me otherwise. You left us with no choice.”

“Except to not listen into private conversations and wait for me to tell you what’s going on.”

“If I had done that, would you have told me where Matthew was so I could help kill him?”

“Probably not, but he still would have wound up dead.”

“Then I rest my case.” I shrug his complaint off. “Anyways, back to the camera.”

“I should spank your ass,” he grumbles.

“Feel free, later,” I tell him. “I remember she clearly told me she took the camera out after you gave it back to me. Which means she put it back in on purpose, just for today.”

Skull sighs, taking the hair bow and putting it in his pocket. “Soon, mi cielo, we will discuss your tendencies to think you are a detective, but not today. Today, I think I’m the reason she’s spying on us.”

“You are?” I ask, confused.

Skull stands up and reaches his hand out to me. “Walk with me, Beth.”

“Gabby…” I remind him, but I stand and take his hand, wondering what’s going on.

“We’ll just walk a few steps. She’ll never be out of our sight,” he answers.

We go about ten feet. He smiles at me, and it’s the type of smile that makes my heart flutter in my chest.

“Skull…”

“Just a little over three years ago, my world was rocked to its core. I saw this girl with sparkling spun-gold hair blowing in the wind, in this pure white dress looking like an angel. Mi ángel. She was a picture of something in my mind that I dreamed of when I was a child, and then her eyes… As a child, I wanted a woman with sky blue eyes that reminded me of a happy memory. But this woman’s was a combination, a gray that look like the sky just before the rains open up. Much more interesting… more captivating.”

“Skull, sweetheart…”

“Te amo, mi cielo.”

“That’s why you call me your sky?”

“I love you, my sky,” he repeats in English. “You are it for me,” he says, his voice thick with emotion, and I can feel each vibration inside of me.