One and Only (Wilder Family, #1)

by Karla Sorensen

The only thing I knew was the man who cleaned our scraped knees and helped pull our hair back for ballet recitals and who taught us how to shoot a .22 and throw a punch.

“You want to …?” When my voice trailed off, he nodded slowly. “Be your fake husband. If you’ll be my fake wife.”

“Game changer,” he repeated slowly. “Yeah.” I pushed my dirty clothes into my duffel and shook my head. “I never have before. And I don’t think it has to make sense, or fit into whatever definition of right I held prior to meeting her.” I set my hands on my hips and faced him fully. “I think that’s your sister for me, Parker. She’s a game changer in my life.”

You can give a kid everything they need—food and shelter and clothes, drive them to practices and sign them up for clubs—and you still have every chance not to show them that they’re your world. You can go through the motions, do all the things you’re supposed to, and no one would ever be able to convince me that their little brains can’t tell the difference between that and a parent who’d light the world on fire to take care of them. I would burn everything down for Olive. And I had to believe she could feel that.