Bringing Home Daddy Read online

  “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “No need for all those niceties. Be yourself, you’re among family now.” Jen says throwing her arm around my shoulders in a side hug.

  I look to War and he shrugs his shoulders and grins.

  With all the noise, Walker starts to wiggle, and eventually, he turns his head to face us, his sleepy eyes landing on Jen and me with his mouth turned up in a toothy smile.

  Jen gasps beside me. “He looks just like War when he was that age. They could have been twins. I had no idea Magnolia. If I had known about you and Walker, I would have reached out to you as soon as I found out.”

  “Sorry Mom, I wasn’t ready to share her before all that shit went down. I thought it would be better if no one knew about her until I was out and could shield her from this life.”

  “You didn’t think we could have protected your woman and son?” Judd growls.

  War rolls his eyes. “It’s not like that old man and you know it.”

  Judd throws his hand up ignoring his son and walks into the living room to sit beside his wife. It’s a good thing War has a huge sectional couch and all these people can fit, if not things would be very cozy right now.

  Judd reaches his hand out for mine. “I’m that bozo’s father, but you can call me Dad.”

  “Can I hold him?” Jen asks.

  “Of course.” I hand him over to Jen who looks like she’s already in love with him.

  “He’s beautiful,” She murmurs smiling at Walker.

  For the next hour, I watch Walker meet his grandparents for the first time. War ends up sitting beside me, his arm wrapped around my shoulders as I get to know his parents. Walker is in hog heaven when Judd sets him down and he gets busy taking things out of the bags. They loaded up on stuffed animals, books, baby toys, clothes, diapers, wipes. Anything and everything you could think a baby would need, they bought it and brought it over.

  “You didn’t have to do all this,” I say looking at everything.

  “Of course we did, sweet girl. When Tucker came over this afternoon and told Judd and I what he found out today, I knew a shopping trip was in order. We weren’t able to do this before he was born, but we would have.”

  “It’s just so much.”

  “Didn’t your parents help you out?”

  I shake my head. “No. When I told them I was pregnant and War was the father, they told me to get rid of the baby.”

  “I try not to speak ill of anyone, but your parents are assholes,” Jen tells me.

  I shrug, knowing she’s right. “I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. They kicked me out until I did what they wanted. Instead, I sold my car to pay for a down payment and a few month’s rent on a townhouse, bought a car that was in working condition, and worked my job at the diner.”

  War squeezes my hand, and in his own way, I believe he’s telling me he’s sorry about earlier today.

  “Living through life’s struggles makes us stronger. Thank you for standing up for what was right and having Walker. I’m proud of you girl.” Judd says in a serious tone.

  “Thank you,” I say and wipe away a few stray tears. “I can’t remember a time my father ever told me he was proud of me. You’ve known me for an hour. When War told me about you, I didn’t know what to think. I guess I expected some scary guy with a gun.”

  War, Jen, and Judd burst into laughter. I can’t tell you why what I said was so funny, but I’m going with it. War’s family aren’t the monsters I imagined them to be. They are warm, happy people. They are the opposite of everything I grew up to believe a family was.

  Chapter Six

  War

  Parker arrives about an hour and a half after Mom and Dad with bags of takeout from the diner. My little sister is a hardass, but she’s loyal and loves her family more than anything. It’s been too long since I’ve seen her. Dad and I both told her not to come and visit me in prison. I didn’t want her to see me like that and didn’t want our enemies to get a look at her. She begrudgingly stayed away.

  “Good to see you War.” She says giving me a big hug.

  “You too, Parks.” When I release her, I pull her into the living room where Mom and Dad are talking to Magnolia and watching Walker crawl around the living room playing with his new toys.

  “Magnolia, I’d like you to meet my sister, Parker.”

  Magnolia’s eyes go wide as she stares at my sister in shock. “You’re War’s sister?”

  “Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I had to keep an eye on you for my big bro.”

  “You two know each other?” I ask staring between them.

  Magnolia’s about to say something when Parker jumps in to explain.

  “You were acting too happy when you got home from being stationed away for so long. You had said for years that you were going to move away and start a new life, but a few days after you got home you started talking about fixing this place up and how Jefferson County wasn’t the worst place to live. I figured you met someone, so I did a little digging and found out about Magnolia. I also found out who her dad was and figured she was trying to pump you for info.”

  “That is not what happened!” Magnolia growls as she gets up and stands beside me.

  “Easy baby girl let her finish,” I say wrapping my arm around her waist, so she doesn’t attack her future sister-in-law.

  “I went to work at the diner to keep an eye on you. Make sure you weren’t using War for information. I hated you when we first met.”

  Magnolia nods. “I know. I didn’t know why though.”

  Parker shrugs. “You seemed too happy and lived in Lala land. Then I watched what happened to your smile when War was sent away. I was going to quit and leave you to suffer, but then I noticed your belly begin to grow. I stayed to see what happened and eventually I stopped hating you. In time I actually started to like you.”

  “You knew the whole time I was pregnant, with your nephew and you never said a word?” Magnolia asks, fury all over her beautiful face.

  “I’m sorry Magnolia. I wanted to tell you so badly, but I couldn’t.” Parker says.

  “And why didn’t you tell us? Huh, miss priss?” Mom asks, walking up to stand beside Magnolia.

  “Because I thought War was keeping her a secret for a reason. So I stayed the course and kept an eye on her until he was out. He could figure out who to tell after that.” She tells our mom.

  “I asked Tucker to keep an eye on Magnolia when I went away, but he fucked it all up. Kept trying to convince me that Magnolia was with someone else and had his kid. He wanted me to forget about you.” I say looking down at Magnolia as I hold her close to my side. “I don’t understand what he was thinking,” I tell my family.

  “Tucker is an idiot and I refuse to talk to that dipshit. You might want to pick better friends War.”

  “I agree with your sister. Something isn’t adding up with him. I’ll dig into it and let you know what I find out.” Dad says from the ground where he’s playing with Walker.

  “Thanks, Dad. How about we eat before the food gets cold.”

  After dinner, Magnolia convinced me to take her back to the townhouse so she could grab some things for her and Walker. Mom and Dad agreed to stay and watch Walker while we were gone so we could do what we needed to and get out of there.

  When we arrived and I saw where she was living, I regretted my decision to keep her a secret from my family even more. She missed out on so much love and support. After hearing how her family treated her when they found out about the pregnancy I was gutted. My family would have never done that to Parker, ever.

  The townhouse looks like shit and is in the worst part of town. My skin crawls thinking about the people who live around here. I don’t know how she survived living out here without anything happening to her.

  Magnolia inserts her key and is about to walk in when I pull her to the side and step forward. I’ve got a bad feeling about this place. “Let me go in first. Make sure everything is safe.” I’d rather be
overprotective and save her from harm than let anything bad happen to her. When I walk in, a man a few years younger than me is tied to a chair with duck tape over his mouth. He looks scared out of his mind. Judge King is standing behind him with a gun pointed at his head.

  “Where is my daughter?” The judge asks in a cold voice.

  “Dad?” She calls from behind me and pushes her way into the house. When she sees what is happening her eyes go wide and she backs up against me. “What is going on? Why is Birch tied up?”

  “He refused to tell me where you were, so I tied him up. I couldn’t have him warning you.”

  “You didn’t have to tie him up!”

  “Watch your tone young lady. I’m not going to let you ruin our family’s name because you couldn’t keep your fucking legs closed. You are going to leave town and never come back.”

  “What? Why?”

  “No one can know that your child is a Hayes. I’d be the laughing stock of the town if they knew. I’m running for Mayor in the next election. How do you think it will look knowing we have criminals in the family now?” He sneers.

  “How do you think it will look if people knew you held your own nephew at gunpoint?” I mouth off.

  “Shut up. No one will know about this. It will be like it never happened. Just like those letters you two were sending back and forth.”

  “What did you do?” Magnolia says, trying to surge forward. With my hands on her shoulders, I hold her back.

  “I burned every letter you sent, after reading them of course.” He tells her with a sick grin on his face.

  “Those were private.” She yells.

  She’s letting him rile her and she needs to chill out so that we all make it out of here. “Calm down love.” I murmur. She struggles against my hold, but I refuse to let her out of my grasp. “He’s pissing you off on purpose. Look, he’s enjoying this shit.” I whisper into her ear. She settles down immediately.

  “What do you want King?

  Just then Tucker comes walking into living room from the back of the house. What the hell?

  “I did everything you told me to.” He says looking at King.

  When he notices Magnolia and me standing there, he gives me an evil smile. “War, hey buddy. I didn’t notice you were here.”

  “You’re working for King?” I shout.

  Tucker shrugs. “Judd hasn’t been giving me good jobs for a while now. Even before you came home, he wasn’t working me much. I thought once you were back it would be like it was before. Then you met this bitch. You weren’t interested in working with your dad anymore. You were trying to go the straight and narrow. Kind of messed up my plan. I paid the judge here a visit to let him know who his daughter was seeing.”

  “What did you do?” I growl.

  “He wasn’t too happy to hear about his daughter hanging out with Judd Hayes’ son. We hatched a plan to get you out of the way.”

  “How did that help you?”

  He shrugs, smiling at me smugly. “Maybe it was good to see the golden boy finally get what was coming to him. Maybe I hoped you’d change your mind about working with your dad. Who knows, but it was better than watching you get what you wanted like you always do.”

  “Fuck you.” I seethe.

  He laughs for a few seconds, then stops and looks at Magnolia. “You’re coming with me. Let’s go.”

  Magnolia shakes her head back and forth. “No.”

  “Go. Or his death is on your hands.” Judge King says, pushing the muzzle of the gun against Birch’s head.

  Fuck. How do I get us out of this? The next thing I know, the front window shatters beside us, and Tucker and Judge King have a single bullet hole in the middle of their foreheads. Kill shot. Their lifeless bodies fall to the ground.

  My first instinct is to tackle Magnolia and lay over her body just in case any more shots are fired. After a few minutes and no more bullets come flying I get up and help Magnolia to stand. “We should be safe.” I’m pretty sure I knew who fired the shots.

  “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” Magnolia mumbles as she walks shakily over to Birch to untie him. She starts pulling the tape off of his mouth, slowly at first but realizes she’s hurting him more that way. “Sorry. I’m just going to pull it off fast.”

  “Son of a bitch! That hurt Mags.” Birch yells as soon as the tape is off.

  “Oh thank god you’re okay.” She says hugging his tied up body.

  “Uh, love you too bitch, but untie me first.”

  “Oh right. One sec.”

  “I got it,” I say pulling my knife out of my pocket. “Don’t move Birch.”

  “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Mr. Warren Hayes in the flesh. The first and only man to steal my girl’s heart.”

  “Shut up, Birch,” Magnolia growls, pink tinting her cheeks.

  “There, you can get up now,” I tell Birch then pull Magnolia into my arms. “You okay baby girl?”

  She shrugs and continues to tremble against me. “Should we call the police? What do we even tell them?”

  “The truth.”

  Magnolia thinks for a moment. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. Not after they saved us.”

  I smile down at her, realizing she knows my people are the ones behind this. “Whoever it was, they were careful. They didn’t leave any evidence behind that could tie themselves to this.”

  The police show up about ten minutes later. Birch tells them about how his uncle showed up to talk to him and that after a while the other guy showed up and tied him to the chair at gunpoint. Then they waited for Magnolia to arrive home. The detectives speak to all of us separately and tell us to come down to the station for a formal statement the next day.

  Once they are finished with us, we grab a few items for Walker and Magnolia and get out of there. I offer to let Birch stay with us until the police are out of the house, but he refuses, telling us he already has a place to go. This makes Magnolia very happy.

  By the time we get home, it’s close to midnight and everyone is exhausted. I get the portable crib set up in the spare bedroom while Magnolia changes Walker into pajamas then nurses him for a bit before laying him down for the night.

  When she’s through Mom and Dad have already left for the night but promise to call in the morning to check in with us.

  Chapter Seven

  Magnolia

  Today has been such a roller coaster of events and emotions. I’ve just laid Walker down for bed and I’m exhausted. All I want to do is sleep for twelve hours straight. I doubt I’ll get that though since Walker is a notoriously early riser.

  I walk into War’s bedroom to find him standing there in nothing but a pair of athletic shorts. “Jesus,” I whisper staring at his muscular chest and defined abs. The only time we were together it was dark out and I never got a good look at his body, even then, most of his clothes stayed on.

  “Want to grab a shower now, or wait until morning?”

  “Now is good,” I say, still staring at his chest.

  Grabbing my hand, War leads us into the bathroom and turns the shower on for me. He grabs my dress and starts to drag it up my thighs, but I stop him.

  War’s eyebrows pull together. “What’s wrong?”

  I bite my lip not wanting to say what’s going through my head. “I don’t look the same as I did before. I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

  War lifts my chin with his finger so that I’m looking him in the eyes. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Nothing about your body will disappoint me. I thought you were beautiful before, but you look fucking smoking hot with fuller hips and bigger tits. Trust me, I’m not complaining over here. Lose weight, gain weight, I don’t care, I just want you to be happy. I’m going to need to be inside your tight pussy every fucking day for the rest of our lives. Got it, baby girl?”

  “Yeah. I got it.”

  “Good.” He says, then pulls my dress up and over my head. “Fuck you’re even more gorgeous than I remember. Come
here.”

  I grab his hand and he pulls me snug to his body as he unhooks my bra. He slides his hands down my back and over my ass, then picks me up and sets me down on the counter.

  “I’ve waited a long time to kiss you like this.” He says before holding my chin between two fingers and sliding his tongue into my mouth. Oh god. I wrap my arms around his neck and devour every kiss. When he pulls away I whimper, not wanting him to leave me like this.

  His heated stare travels over my breasts, down my tummy, and lands on my wet pussy. Using his thumb, he rubs my throbbing clit a few times before sliding my panties to the side and running his thumb through my wet lips and up to my clit to rub it again.

  “Ohhh, War. So good.” I moan.

  With a cocky grin, he kneels in front of me, peeling my panties down my legs. He scoots my ass forward until it’s almost hanging off the edge then spreads my knees as wide as they’ll go. The first swipe of his tongue is nothing like I’d thought it would be, but better.

  “Fucking sweet as candy. I need another taste.” He moans. Over and over he licks at my pussy, sucks on my clit, then pushes his tongue inside me. I have to grab onto the strands of his hair to keep him where I need him which only spurs him on. The harder I pull, the wilder his tongue gets. When he looks into my eyes and pushes one and then two fingers inside me, my eyes roll to the back of my head and fireworks explode behind my eyes.

  After a few moments, I open my eyes and look up to find War standing between my thighs, fisting his dick as he looks at my pussy.

  “I promised myself the next time I had you, I’d do it right. You deserve everything baby girl, but watching you come undone, it’s too much. I need you Magnolia, I need inside that tight pussy.”

  I’m entranced, watching him touch himself. “I need you too, War. Make love to me.”

  “Fuck.” He groans and slides his dick through my lips. “You ready for me baby?”

  “Yes.” I moan. I clutch his shoulders as he presses into my very wet pussy, stretching it to fit him.