Smoke and Steel (Wild West MC #2)(111)

“Where, Dad?” I pushed.

“I dropped him at a shelter,” he forced out.

My body went solid.

My father dropped the beloved family dog at a shelter because he was pitching a fit.

“A kill shelter?” The words were strangled, and I felt the pads of Core’s fingers press in.

“I don’t know,” he muttered.

Lord God, I hoped it wasn’t, and if it was, then someone adopted and went on to love and adore my baby at least as much as I did.

He must have been so confused, in a loving home with his three girls devoted to him one second, and in a cage the next.

I couldn’t dwell on it. I’d dwelled on every version I could conjure about it for years, and each one always tore me apart. Now knowing what befell him didn’t make it better in the slightest.

“You know,” I said quietly, and hearing my tone, Core pressed in fully at his hand at my back, but also, I felt Dad’s sudden hyper focus on me. “I’ve thought about it a lot. And I loved my dog. I loved him and he loved me. But it wasn’t just losing Tigger that hurt so goddamned much. It was you taking him away from me being the beginning of me losing you too. It was you doing something so selfish and cruel because you weren’t getting the attention you wanted when you finally deigned to spend time with your family. And this made me start falling out of love with my own dad. And since then, that never stopped happening.”

His neck was fully red now, and he looked genuinely wounded.

But, too little, too late.

“Hellen—” Dad started.

However now, Core was having none of it.

“You done?” Core grunted his question at me.

“Yes,” I replied.

Core walked around me.

Dad was looking at me, but his attention quickly went to Core.

I watched, impressed, as Core used everything but his hands to herd Dad to the door while Dad exclaimed, “Don’t touch me!” and “Stay back!” and “I’m not done talking to my daughter!”

He I’m-not-doned himself out the door, after which Core shut it in his face and locked it.

He waited.

I waited.

No banging, no shouting.

I should have known.

Dad was not one to fight for his kids. He’d just been embarrassed because, in his mind, he’d just been unmanned. He would go lick his wounds and then one day (maybe) try again with his shenanigans.

My man turned to me.

“That,” I jabbed my finger at the door. “That is how you take care of me. And you’re really fucking good at it.”

And then I started crying.

Shit!

When did I become a crier?

Suddenly, I was in Core’s arms and also in his lap in the armchair.

He rubbed my back and fussed with my hair and didn’t once shush me or make me talk to try to release the pain.

When I was wiping my face, I realized the weight on my thigh wasn’t Core’s other hand.

It was Nanook’s jaw.

Man, I was so damned lucky.

I reached out and covered Core’s hand that was resting on our pup’s head.

“The best dog dad ever?” Core teased.

“It bodes well for our future,” I sniffled.

Taking my hand with it, he gave Nanook a rub then he dislodged us so he could wrap both arms around me.

“Your shit all over the floor in the closet bugs me,” he said softly into my hair. “The mess you leave in the bathroom is not my favorite thing. I don’t mind clothes in the hamper, but I don’t like to look at them spilling all over the floor. I’ve learned a Hellen minute is three actual minutes so if you say ten, you mean thirty, and that can get aggravating. And I don’t like to go to bed alone. I wouldn’t mind it if it was once in a while, but it happens a lot.”

I took in a shaky breath and lifted my head to look at him.

When I did, he went on, “But I honest as fuck don’t mind you working late. If it’s tough for you to get up early, don’t. Do what you do. That’s the woman I fell in love with.”

And here was the man I fell in love with.

“I’ll pick up the closet,” I told him. “And I honestly didn’t realize I did that with time.”

“You tell me what you think I want to hear, not the way it is.”

I had no idea I did that, but I didn’t doubt I did.

“I’ll have a mind to that too.”

“Okay, baby,” he murmured, moving in to touch his lips to mine.

When he pulled away, I promised, “I’ll also have a mind to my stuff in the bathroom and not working too often when it’s time to go to bed.”

“Appreciated.”

“But you cook and grocery shop, so I do laundry,” I continued. “It’s not quite an equitable distribution of chores, but it makes me feel better because I’m doing something.”

His lips hitched up. “I like to cook, I hate laundry, so that works for me.”

I put a hand at his throat and stroked there. “You don’t need to clean up after Nanook every day.”

“Sweetheart, growing up, I didn’t have nice anything. We had a shit couch in a shit trailer in a shitty trailer park. I got nice things now. I take care of them. Yeah, I went into overdrive because you got pretty clothes and I didn’t want Nanook all over them. But you and your girls gave me an awesome crib. It means something to me. What doesn’t mean anything to me is taking ten minutes to run the sweeper every day.”