Damn. "You have amazing self-control." He backed up and grabbed his shirt off the bed.
"Tell me about it." She looked at him over her shoulder. "Except when it comes to handbags. I can never resist a good handbag."
And she winked, which made him want to groan.
Danny beat a retreat before he tested her self-control any further.
His was already shot to hell.
Chapter 17
Piper's scrawny legs reached for the sky, her head tilted back, an expression of abandon on her rosy cheeks, as she clung to the chains of the swing. Danny was pushing her—he didn't need to, she was eight, after all—but he liked to do it.
He liked the pressure of his hand on her small, sweaty back, liked sending her soaring high up into the air so that she smiled and gasped with delight. Piper didn't squeal or laugh loudly or demand higher, but nonetheless she looked and acted and felt like a child when she was swinging.
That pleased him. As did the way she moved around the house now, without hesitation, and the way she no longer scooted away from his touch. Her shoulders were straighter when she stood, and she didn't cower. Her skin had a healthy glow that had been missing when she'd arrived, and despite Amanda's obsession with slathering sunscreen on her, Piper was slow-roasting her way to a tan in the August heat.
It had only been a bit shy of three weeks, but he liked to think they were both settling in, and that there was good to show for it in Piper already. Eventually, he hoped she would trust him. Love him. That he could be a real father despite having missed the first eight years of her life.
He wouldn't ever forgive himself for that, would always ache for what he hadn't seen, hadn't been able to do for her, but he was grateful for what he did have. He had the rest of her life, and that was a pleasant future to look forward to.
"That's high enough," she told him, lifting her hand off the chain to point to the swing next to her. "But can you push Anita?"
"Okay." He was trying to roll with this whole made-up friend business, but truthfully, Amanda was better at it than he was. He always felt like a first-class fool talking to the air. But for Piper's sake, he pulled the empty swing back and let it go. "Hang on, Anita."
Piper dropped her bare feet to the ground and swiped them back and forth until she slowed down. "Let me push you."
He figured she was talking to Anita, so he stepped to the side. But Piper jumped off the swing and pointed to it. "Sit down."
"Me?" he asked in surprise, slapping his thumb onto his chest. He eyed the slingshot seat with suspicion. "I don't think that will hold me, baby girl. I'm a big guy."
"Hairy too," she said with a perfectly straight face. "Like a gorilla. That's what Anita thinks."
"Hey!" Danny burst out laughing. "I am not hairy. And the hair I have is blond, so I'm nothing like a gorilla."
"Let me push you." Piper patted the seat encouragingly and gave him a smile.
Like he could resist that. "Alright, but I'm telling you, my butt is not going to fit in there."
But it did. Just barely. The swing set creaked a little under the strain of his weight. "By the way, tonight you'll have to sleep in my room, because Amanda has stunk yours up with paint. I'll sleep on the couch."
"Okay. Can I bring my butterfly comforter?"
"Sure thing." Her new bedding had arrived, and she had been using it already. The rapturous look on her face when she had opened the bag had given him naked joy.
Piper's hands pressed against his back, but he didn't move an inch. He tried to lean forward and make it easier for her, but he was stuck in the sling seat and couldn't get any leverage.
He tilted his head back so he could see her. She was biting her lip and straining against his back to make him move, her feet slipping in the dirt. Her eyes locked with his, upside down.
"Do you love me?"
He almost fell off the swing.
"Anita says you can't, because you never knew me before, and because Mark says only a mother could love me."
"I love you, Piper." Danny sat up, chest tight, and voice trembling a little. "Come on around here." He pulled her onto his lap in the swing. "I love you more than anything."
She studied him sideways, her dark, wide eyes searching. For honesty, for someone she could trust, he guessed. "Amanda says she loves me too."
And Danny had one more reason to like Amanda Delmar. "Yes, she does, baby. And so do Grandma and Grandpa. We're your family, and we'll always love you."
Her bony backside shifted on his lap, and her voice trembled. "Promise?"
Little hands dug into his jeans above his knees. Danny nodded firmly with all the assurance he could thrust into the gesture, knowing he would probably have to repeat the words many times over the years.
"I promise. I'll always love you."
Amanda didn't know why she was feeling nervous. This was no different than any other date she'd had in her adult life. She was acutely aware a man wanted to have sex with her.
But this time, she wanted to have sex with him right back.
And frankly, that hadn't happened that often. When it did, it was after she had made the rational decision to sleep with a man.
There was nothing rational about her feelings for Danny Tucker, as was evidenced by the fact that she was wearing denim shorts and a paint-spattered T-shirt nine sizes too big for her and still feeling rather sexy. She sipped her coffee at the table and ran her finger over the lace tablecloth. It was good coffee, the real thing. Danny had bought it for her, she knew, though he didn't say that. It was just in the pantry all of a sudden, a nice bag of freshly ground beans, French roast blend.
He was such a nice guy, and she was going to have sex with him in about five minutes.
Piper had run off to Willie and Daniel's house for the much-coveted blackberry pie or cobbler or torte Willie always seemed to be producing. Bless her.
"Let me just get these dishes in the dishwasher," Danny said as he got up from the table.
And then rip your clothes off was implied.
Amanda felt ridiculous just standing there watching him while she pictured him with no pants on. So she started clearing the rest of the dishes from the table. "Here." She handed the plates over to him so he could rinse them.
Having another meal with his family was starting to become a habit. One that probably wasn't wise. Because in spite of the overabundance of carbs and starch, she actually enjoyed herself. They were so unpretentious, so honest. So unimpressed by money, status, names.
It made her life feel like a Rubic's cube. Unsolvable. There didn't seem to be a place for her in either the world she'd been born into, or this one here on the Tucker farm.