A Cowboy In The Kitchen. Meg Maxwell

slices of French toast cooking, eyeholes cut out for blueberries and a mouth cut out for strawberry slices for Lucy’s portion. Smelled pretty darned good too.

      He thought about all those women coming by, in the first couple of months after Lorna died, with casseroles and offers to cook for him. There’d been innuendo and flat-out invitations. More than a few times he’d taken up those invitations, needing to forget, to be taken out of himself. And more than a few times he’d failed Lucy. One time he’d been in a woman’s bed when he was supposed to pick up Lucy early from school for a dentist appointment, but the woman had made him forget himself so well he forgot his own daughter. Another time Lucy had been calling him over and over on the phone from Lorna’s parents’ house, where she was sleeping over, to tell him she lost a tooth, her first, but he’d shut the ringer so no one could interrupt him while a stranger with big breasts was naked beside him.

      The next morning, the look of absolute disdain and disappointment on Raina Dunkin’s face had said it all. A father, especially a widowed father, needs to be reachable at all times, West, she’d practically spit at him. But it was the look on Lucy’s face, with one of her bottom front teeth gone, the where were you, Daddy? I tried to call you like one million times that had made him vow that was it. No more women. No more whiskey. No more hiding from his life. He’d focus on his daughter.

      So beautiful women with long red hair and dark brown eyes, who made him want to rip off their loose jeans and white button-down shirts, women like Annabel Hurley, just couldn’t go around casually touching his hand while slicing mushrooms.

      “Daddy, I think Daisy ate my silver crayon,” Lucy called from the living room. “She’s choking!”

      West rushed into the living room, where Daisy was sputtering a bit, trying to get something out of her mouth and pushing on her teeth with her paw.

      “Daddy, is Daisy okay?” Lucy asked, hazel eyes worried.

      “Well, let’s see if we can help her,” he said, kneeling beside Daisy and opening the beagle’s mouth, where half a crayon was wedged in her back teeth. “Daisy, that couldn’t possibly have tasted good,” he said, shaking his head and trying to pop up the flattened, bitten crayon. Finally out it came. As the smell of something burning wafted into the living room, Daisy stood up and spit out the other half of the crayon.

      Damn it, the French toast! It would be burned to a crisp by now.

      The doorbell rang just as West was rushing back into the kitchen, so he quickly shut off the burner, then noticed he’d left the bag of bread too close to the burner; part of it started to cinder. He threw that in the sink and stood there for a moment, hands braced on the counter, wishing his headache away.

      “Daddy, the doorbell rang again,” Lucy called out just as the smoke alarm started blaring.

      “Lucy, it’s Nana and Pop-Pop,” he heard Raina’s shrill voice call out. “Come open the door, sweetheart.”

      Oh, hell.

      He quickly tried to fan the smoke from the alarm with a magazine, then hurried into the living room, where Raina and Landon glared at him.

      “What is that burning smell?” Raina said, barreling in and heading for the kitchen. West could hear her shoving up the kitchen window, and in a few moments, the alarm stopped its beeping. Raina was back in the living room in seconds, holding the charred bag of bread. “Blackened bread is in a pan on the stove. This burned bag was in the sink, and the kitchen is all smoky, which can seriously hurt developing lungs. God, West.”

      “We had a mergency with Daisy because she ate my crayon,” Lucy said, holding up the flattened sliver for her nana.

      “Even the dog isn’t safe in this house,” Landon said, shaking his silver-gray head at West as he took the crayon from Lucy. “I’ll make sure this ends up in the garbage so there isn’t another ‘mergency.’”

      “I heard Lucy was at the doctor today,” Raina said as she went over to Lucy to examine her leg. She peeled back the bandage and added her own head shake at the nasty cut. He watched Raina’s gaze take in Lucy’s torn purple leggings, the scrape on her arm, the knot clumping together a cluster of ringlets on the left side of her head, the dirt smudge on her cheek.

      “I fell out of the tree today,” Lucy said proudly, sticking out her injured leg.

      “Oh, I can see that,” Raina said, shooting a death stare at West. “Lucy, can you go play in your room?” she added through gritted teeth. “Grandpa and I need to talk to your father.”

      When Lucy left, Raina lowered her voice. “You leave me no choice, West. We’ve given you a year to get your act together. But you’re unfit to parent Lucy alone. Landon and I will be filing for custody. This was the final straw.” She held up a hand. “Don’t bother to defend yourself,” she said, and then they swept out.

      West dropped down on the sofa, his head in his hands. No one was taking his daughter away from him. But how would he fight the Dunkins when a lot of circumstantial evidence said he wasn’t exactly father of the year?

      “Daddy, is the French toast ready? I’m starving,” Lucy said as she burst out of her room. “Hey, where’s Nana and Pop-Pop?” she asked, looking around.

      Keep it together for Lucy, he ordered himself. The Dunkins aren’t taking your girl away. They can’t. He’d figure it out, he’d fight them, he’d...do whatever he had to do.

      He sucked in a breath and let it out. “They had to get home. You know what, Lucy? Even Daisy wouldn’t eat the burned French toast. How about dinner at Hurley’s, just the two of us? Go wash your hands, sweetcakes.”

      As Lucy grinned and ran to wash up, West felt a slow snake of cold fear slither up his spine. Could the Dunkins prove he was unfit? He was a better father now than he was in the terrible first month after Lorna’s death, when Lucy didn’t quite understand where her mother was, but had two sets of doting grandparents. He’d let them do what he should have done—been there for his daughter. Then his parents moved away...and he’d lost them too—permanently. Instead of focusing on being a good dad to Lucy, he’d drank too much and spent too many nights with women, trying to make himself forget who and what he was. A man very much alone who had no idea how to be a good father.

      He would not lose his daughter. No matter what he had to do.