He scooped Livie up and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Did you have fun?”
“So much fun, Daddy.”
“Think we should go for some ice cream now?”
“Yes!”
“She’s down for the night,” Kendall said. She sat on the couch next to Cooper and picked up the glass of wine he had ready for her. “She had a great time today. Thank you for that.”
“Hey, I had as much fun today as she did. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a batting cage. I’m going to do it more often.”
“You should. You’re really good at it. Do you regret not going for a baseball career?”
“There have been times I’ve wondered if I would have made it into the pros, but no, I don’t for a minute regret the way things turned out.”
“That’s good, then.” She finished the last of her wine, then set the glass aside. “So, am I going to respond to the creep’s last email? Not that I want to talk about it, but I feel like there’s a black thundercloud hanging over my head as long as he’s out there somewhere. I didn’t want to ask while Livie was with us, but did Grayson have any news this morning when you talked to him?”
He took her hand and tugged her next to him. “Yes, and we’ll talk about that in the morning. For tonight, let’s pretend he doesn’t exist, and we’re just a normal woman and man who are getting to know each other while we date.”
She snuggled closer and rested her head on his shoulder. “Is that what we’re doing? Dating?”
He leaned over and brushed his lips over hers. “If that’s what you want.”
“I’d like that.”
“Good. Should we make out like teenagers in heat?”
She laughed. “I don’t think I was ever in heat… Well, there was that one night in Atlanta about five years ago. I might have been then.”
He stood, pulling her up with him. “Let’s go see if we can recreate that night.”
“You think you can? I mean, you were a lot younger back then.”
He stopped, stared hard at her for a moment, then grinned as he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. “Trust me, baby, I’m up to the task.”
“Put me down, you beast.” She giggled when he lightly spanked her bottom.
“I’ll show you a beast.”
And he did. Quite awesomely, in fact.
“This is the response we want you to send to our bad guy,” Cooper said.
She so didn’t want a bad guy. They were back in the conference room at The Phoenix Three. Livie was spending the morning with Tyler again, and she’d been both excited about seeing him and worried that she was going to wear out her welcome.
Sometimes the things you said to your child could come back to bite you. It had taken both her and Cooper to convince her that Tyler wasn’t going to get tired of her. They were lucky that Tyler was out of school for the week for spring break, and that he liked playing with Livie.
The monitor in front of her came to life, and she read the response the guys had crafted.
Do you think I care that you’re disappointed? What I do care about is that I told you to fuck off but here you are again,bothering me with your stupid threats. I have no intention of seeing you soon, so goodbye.
“I guess we really are trying to make him angry.” Her gaze traveled from Liam to Grayson before landing on Cooper. She trusted him, all three of them actually, but she was far outside her comfort level. “What do you expect him to do after he gets this?”
“The whole point of your responses to him is to make him so angry he makes a mistake that will lead us to him,” Cooper said.
Grayson tapped a finger on the table. “We’ve traced his emails back to computers in three different libraries. One in Decatur, one in downtown Atlanta and one in Marietta. Right now, he’s a faceless, nameless entity hiding behind the protection of public computers. He thinks he’s invisible. He’s not, and we’ll know who he is soon enough.”
“Libraries have cameras. Can—”