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How was it he could stare down a bad guy with a gun pointed at him and not break a sweat but when it came to this woman he froze?
“Morning, Dad!” Nova breezed into the kitchen and headed straight to the fridge.
Rhys glanced up from the phone and turned around to lean back against the counter. Nova, his twenty-year-old daughter, was home for the summer from college. Rhys still couldn’t believe his little girl, who’d dragged around her baby blanket until she was seven years old, was going to be a junior at the University of South Carolina.
She assessed the fridge before shutting the door and faced him. She reminded him so much of his ex, but her eyes were all him.
He blinked, taking in her hair.
“When did you go pink?” he asked.
Her chin-length hair was now streaked with bright-pink highlights. She ran her fingers through it, a crooked grin spreading across her face.
“Oh, yesterday. It was a last-minute decision. You like it?” She spun around, allowing him to take it all in.
Rhys sighed and shook his head. Her mother was going to shit bricks when she saw it.
That meant he loved it.
“I do. It looks good.” He grinned.
She squealed and jumped in place.
“I knew you would like it. I think Mom burst an aneurysm when she saw it.” She smirked.
Sometimes Rhys got the feeling Nova purposely tested her mother by performing such stunts. The two were always at each other’s throats for one reason or another. Sara Beth had never understood why their daughter preferred to be with him after the divorce.
From the first moment he had heard his baby’s heartbeat, something in Rhys had changed. He knew he would do anything for their child. The first time he’d held her and breathed in her scent, he was a goner. He’d been smitten with her. She had grown up to be a daddy’s girl, and he was proud of the woman she had become. He never would have dreamed that he and Sara Beth would divorce. He had imagined them growing old together and having a house full of kids by now.
“I’m surprised she didn’t demand you return to the salon and fix it.”
“Oh, she threatened, but I reminded her, like she always does me, that I’m twenty now and a grown adult. I can do whatever I want with my hair.” She came over to him and peeked around him. She snatched up his phone and ran to the other side of the island. “Oh, you have a text from Jordan.”
“Hey, give that back.”
He jogged after her, but she ran around the island. Her giggles filled the air. Nova had been ecstatic when she had discovered he was dating again. She had encouraged him for years to jump back in the dating pool to try to find love. Rhys would have never imagined that his daughter would push for him to find someone. His career and raising Nova had been his life.
But apparently, Nova had worried he would be alone for the rest of his life.
Rhys loved her deeply, and it sort of made him feel good that she worried about him. It let him know that she had been raised right.
“Why didn’t you respond? She’s obviously telling you she wants to spend the night.” Nova wagged her eyebrows at him.
Rhys bit back a groan and rested his hands on the island. He didn’t want to have this type of conversation with her. What had happened to the days when she’d run up to him and want to be thrown in the air? That was something they used to do when she was about four years old. Now she was a grown woman offering him advice on dating. Where had the time gone?
“You can’t leave a woman like Jordan hanging.”
“I will answer, but you have my phone.” He moved over to the cabinet and took out one of his CPD mugs. He grabbed the carafe and filled up his cup with the hot brew. “You might not want to scroll up.”
“Eww!” Nova brought the phone over to him.
He laughed at her eye roll. She set the phone down and pulled a cup out of the cabinet and held it out to him.
“Well, you shouldn’t be so nosy. Never know what you will find.” He poured into her mug then returned the carafe where it belonged.
“Dad, please don’t tell me you send d-pics.” She moved over to the fridge to get her creamer.
Rhys never understood the notion of doctoring up coffee. Black was just perfect and was the way he liked it. Adding all that other fluff to it took away the appeal. A good strong brew was all a person needed.
