Chapter 25

25

“I won’t.” Dylan pushed the wacky hair out of her eyes and looked at the man responsible for her very existence. “You are being a butthead. I don’t care if the entire town is gossiping about me and Fletcher right now. I am not going to scurry back to your inn and hide. Do you honestly think I am going to stay there for the rest of my life? Devvie isn’t going to, either. We both know that. She wants to be a counselor, Dad. A psychiatrist. To help people like Mom. That is going to take her a long time to do and lots of college, but she can do it. She’s so smart she deserves a chance to go for her dreams. Dorie and Dahlia deserve to have choices too.”

“And so do you, kid,” a male voice said behind her as the kitchen door opened. She turned quickly and then relaxed. It wasn’t the Tyler she thought it was. “Don’t forget that. Even if that choice is to wash my brother’s stinky undies and socks for the rest of your life.”

Ben sounded a lot like Fletcher. And she just wasn’t ready to face Fletcher yet. Not yet. That cowboy’s hand had been under her sweater. She was sure of it. Of course, it had been over her back, but…the man had a touch like fire. And…it may have been elsewhere in the middle of the night. Like under the front of that sweater. Doing things, touching things. Doing things she had liked.

“I know. I’m manufacturing my own choices, actually. Where is your brother? Kissing up to his precious cows?”

“Something like that. Love the hair. Little devil horns definitely suit you.” Her future brother-in-law patted her head lightly.

Dylan ran her fingers through the tangles. What was the point of worrying about her hair now? “Why are you not out there helping your brother?”

“He ordered me to get my ass back in here and take care of his housekeeper. He seems to think your father is a bully and a butthead and didn’t want to leave you alone with him. I’m supposed to protect you from your father until my baby brother gets back in here so he can protect you himself.”

“Ah, he can be so sweet when he’s not busy being a grumpy lunatic. I think it ties into his diet.” Dylan turned back to her father. “No. Repeat. No. Dylan is not going back to the Talley Inn right now. Dylan is Fletcher’s Fletcher-keeper. That requires Dylan keeping Fletcher. Here. Go back to wherever you came from, Father. I love you. Now shoo.”

“Damn it, young lady. Why won’t you just listen to me?” He gave her that look again—the one that said she was disappointing him and everything.

“Because I am too much like you? I have heard it before.” Well, her father wasn’t going to leave, so Dylan would. She headed toward the hall.

“Where are you going now?” her father yelled.

“I am going to go shower. I have to be at the Talley diner in an hour. See, not abandoning the fam. You should take lessons in that, you know. It might make you less of a poophead. Goodbye.”

Once again, Dylan just had one real option where her father was concerned. Dylan just walked away. This was not the best way to start her day at all.

* * *

Fletcher looked at Arthur Talley the instant he stepped back inside his kitchen. Fletcher bit back most of what he wanted to say. This was her father. He would respect the relationship even when he did not respect the man, and never would. “Do not come to my house without her permission first ever again. I don’t want you constantly upsetting her. Am I clear?”

He’d hurried through the morning chores to get back to her. He’d found her missing and her father pacing around his house like Talley belonged there.

“She is my daughter. If she’s living here, I can be here.”

“It really isn’t going to work that way.” Fletcher wanted to punch the older man. He knew that. He was a Tyler—the urge to protect the ones he cared about was strong. And he cared about that woman more than her father would believe. “I’m not going to let you keep hurting her.”

“Hurt her? I’m just trying to protect her. Do you know what people are saying about her now?” There was anger but also pain in the green eyes Dylan had inherited. Like Talley really was upset.

“Tell me. Tell me what they are saying and who it is—I bet Abby Vanderguard is behind it.”

“Earl Vanderguard’s girl?”

“That’s her. Works at the inn. Has a problem with other women and always has. Miranda slugged her a few times in high school, even broke her nose once when Abby wouldn’t leave Dixie alone about her weight. Abby’s been saying things in front of Dahlia to upset her lately. Why don’t you go bully your way around the inn, take care of Dahlia instead? Give Dylan a break for a while? Did it ever occur to you that after what she’s been through lately that the damned inn is triggering her anxiety and she needed to get away?” He had figured that out weeks ago. She always got a little too quiet on the days she was scheduled for the inn. The diner, no—but the inn, definitely.

It hurt him how much she was hurting.

He didn’t know how to fix it. To just make it better.

He'd made a point of driving her in himself over the last week. And hanging out there when he could. Just to be there if she needed him.

“Why would it? It’s her home.”

“It’s not her home, Talley. It never really has been, either. No matter how much you keep pushing it at her. If you knew her at all, you’d understand that. She shouldn’t be forced to live your broken dreams. You can’t force her to be there. You just can’t.”

“The inn will take care of her.”

“When you’re gone? Well, what if that’s not what she wants at all?”

“You planning to pay her to clean your damned house forever, Tyler? I want more for my girl than this.” Talley waved his hand around—right over the seed packets she still had arranged on the kitchen table so neatly. Dismissively. It was how dismissive he was that pissed Fletcher off even more. Did Talley know Dylan’s heart at all? “What do you really know about my daughter?”

“More than you do. I know that if she’ll let me, I’m going to be the man to take care of her from now on. You’d better just get used to it. You’ve done a horrible job so far. It’s someone else’s turn now. I see the real her. I don’t think you can say that right now at all.”

He saw Ben’s surprised look, but his brother nodded. He understood.

Talley kept blustering for a good twenty minutes. Fletcher just let him rant—part of him understood. Talley thought she’d be safer at the inn—with her family. He understood that, Fletcher really did. Safe, loved, protected. He understood.

But that wasn’t what Dylan wanted right now. And she should be the one to decide what she needed—not her father. He and Ben just ate breakfast—Dylan had pumpkin muffins she’d made the day before, just waiting as her father kept up his tirade about the two of them and their Tyler ancestors.

He finally shut up when Ben informed him that his grandchildren would be Tylers someday—Talley was just going to have to get used to it. Or Talley wouldn’t get to see those grandchildren at all. Ever. Period. Something for Talley to keep in mind.

Then Dylan was there, a look on her face that stabbed Fletcher in the gut. She’d apparently been listening to her father rant for a while. “I’m so sorry, guys. He just never listens—or stops. I’m sorry this is how your day started.”

Fletcher just reacted—he scooped her close and kissed her on her forehead. “ He is not your fault. And he never will be. And if he shows up here again without permission, I don’t care how old he is, or who he is, I’m going to kick his ass. Just for you. I promise.”

“Fletchie, you may just be redeemable, after all.”

She shocked the hell out of him when she almost threw herself into his hold, and her arms tightened around him. Fletcher wanted to promise right then to never let her go. He kissed her on her damp hair and just held her for a moment. “Wait here. I’ll shower real quick. I’ll give you a ride in myself.”

“I can take my daughter,” Talley said, eyes narrowed on Fletcher as if he knew exactly what Fletcher wanted from his precious baby girl now.

And he’d give her another one of the lectures Fletcher had already witnessed too many times. No more. Never again. The man was never getting the opportunity to talk to her like that again. Fletcher was going to make sure of it. “That’s just not going to happen.”

Her father wasn’t going to be allowed to hurt her, not on Fletcher’s watch. Dylan had been hurt enough.