This was Cutthroat. It was all about money. Status. Petty shit. How I knew this for a fact was that Bunky was here. If there was a picture beside the definition of a stuck-up asshole in the dictionary, it would be his. Thomas Bunker lived in The Bend and thought his shit didn’t stink. His name had come up a time or two at home in the past week. Sawyer and Kelsey both discovered Bunky was Kelsey’s ex from Colorado. It was a long story, but it meant Bunky wasn’t just a little shit, he was a lying cheater on top of it. His wife, Lynn, was mingling now with the ladies, meaning she either had no clue to his philandering, which I doubted, or she didn’t care. To make things even worse, Lynn was Sarah O’Banyon’s sister, so when Sarah and Huck got married, we’d all probably see the guy more than we ever wanted. God, I hoped they’d elope.

Eddie had been the kickoff guy for the night.

“You’re my daughter’s boyfriend.”

I turned at the voice and pushed Bunky from my mind. This was Astrid’s father. Yeah, he was fucking next up.

“Thatcher.” I stuck my hand out for him to shake.

“Charles.”

“What are your intentions toward my daughter?”

I arched a brow because I thought that question was only in movies. “She’s almost thirty years old. I wasn’t aware she had to defer to her father in these matters.”

Her age was something I didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

He ignored me and asked, “Are you employed?”

“I own a bar in The Bend.”

“So you want Astrid for her money.”

I clenched my jaw and counted to three. No ten.

The first thing that came to mind was that I wanted Astrid for her tits and pussy, but I wasn’t going to say that. Instead, I told him, “She has other attributes that I find appealing.” And I meant more than T and A. I was a guy. I loved her breasts, but I also loved how she pushed her glasses up her nose when she was nervous. Or how I could get her to blush.

He narrowed his eyes, even cocked his head to the side. For a guy around sixty, he was fit. No gut, no jowls. Maybe it was because he was a cardiologist and didn’t want to drop dead on the links like his patients.

“Right.”

I took off my hat, ran a hand over the back of my neck. He didn’t think Astrid had anything to offer a relationship besides money?

After meeting her sister, I could see why he might think that. But Astrid and Amy couldn’t be any different.