I heard a small gasp before I felt him pull away and swing me around. “Daniel, are you finally admitting that you love me?”
I laughed before my palms cupped his cheeks, and I leaned forward enough to kiss him. “Yes, baby. I love you.”
He melted into my embrace for a moment before he pulled back with a sigh. “Can we please go see our house?” He grimaced. “Or what’s left of it?”
I kissed his nose before I chewed my bottom lip. “Let me talk to Rose first. I can’t imagine Jackson will be too much longer, but I don’t know about leaving her here on her own.” I looked past him to where she still sat on the sofa and lowered my voice so she wouldn’t hear me. “She hasn’t said anything, but I can tell she doesn’t want to see the house. I think it’s going to take her some time to get through what happened.”
Nodding once, he smiled and patted me on the cheek knowingly. “And that’s okay. She’s strong. She’s gone through some remarkably tough things before, and she’s still smiling. I know she’ll get through this, too, however long it takes.” Then he raised an eyebrow and smirked at me. “And I look forward to seeing how she’ll react to you telling her that she can’t look after herself for what would likely be half an hour at most.”
I grimaced. Yeah, he had a good point. I looked over at Rose, who was watching us closely with a huge grin on her face.
“I’ll be fine, Daddy Danny,” she sang as she wriggled in her seat, dislodging Bucky’s head from her knee. He grumbled a little before settling down again, this time against her thigh instead of on top of it. “And you should know that sound travelsreallyeasily in this house.”
“Is that right?” I asked her dryly, glancing at Marshall, who was trying hard to smother his grin.
“I’mtwelve, Daddy,” she sassed. “Puppy Bucky and Goofy Lucy will keep me company, and I promise I won’t leave the house or answer the door. And just like Sparkle Marshall said, Pappy Jacky will be back in like half an hour.” She gave me a flat stare. “Are you going to tell me that I can’t be on my own forhalf an hour?”
I blinked at her, then at Marshall, who only shrugged in response. “You’re no fucking help,” I muttered under my breath.
He grinned cheekily. “I live to serve.”
“Hm,” I grumbled before I refocused on Rose. “No cooking anything, you hear me?”
Her jaw dropped in mock outrage. “It’s like you don’t even trust me.”
My lips thinned as I kept her eye contact. “I seem to recall there was a time in the not too distant past where I let you cook pancakes, and you set fire to the kitchen.”
She gasped and looked at Marshall for support.
“Don’t look at me, Rosey. I was there. I saw the flames.”
She gasped louder and fluttered her hand at her chest. “There were no flames! And if there were, you weren’t there to see them!”
“Licking at the ceiling, they were so high.”
“There were not!” She pouted, then crossed her arms before admitting in a quieter tone, “The fire blanket stopped that from happening.”
Even though I was grinning at the animated banter between the two loves of my life, I raised an eyebrow at her and pointed at her. “No cooking. No baking. No use of the oven or stove in any way until Jackson gets back. If you’re hungry before he gets home, you’re to do nothing more in the kitchen other than buttering a slice of bread.”
“Fine,” she said, drawing the word out as she rolled her eyes. “You’re no fun.”
“And clean up any mess you make,” Marshall said deliberately. “Let’s not piss off your Pappy, okay?”
I nodded and thumbed at Marshall. “What he said.”
“God…fine!” She threw her hands up in the air, but she was laughing, so I knew she wasn’t taking what we were saying too personally.
Marshall and I wandered over and took turns kissing her upturned forehead. “Call one of us if you need us, and we’ll come straight back.” I’d bought Marshall a new phone at the same time I bought mine. We’d confirmed the hospital didn’t have it, so we assumed the worst. It was far easier to buy a new phone and have everything moved over than searching through the rubble for his old one only to find it broken beyond repair like mine had been. “We’re not planning on going anywhere else. Just the house and back again, okay?”
“Okay.”
I took a moment to look at my daughter, to really take her in. She was growing up so fast. It would be only a few short years before she’d head off to college, and after that, who knew where she’d go? I needed to hoard all the happy days we had until then, stuff them deep into my heart so I could draw them out one by one in the years to come when I inevitably missed her too much.
Raising children was both a blessing and a curse. It was a privilege to have such a wonderful soul in my care, but I cursed the steady-crawling passage of time that meant it was only for a short time until she decided to spread her wings to make her own way into the world. The best I could do was give her the freedom to learn how to take care of herself and give her a safe place to land if she ever stumbled.
“Oh my God, Dad. Will you just go? Stop worrying so much. I’ll befine.”
I coughed and shook my head to clear my thoughts, only to find her staring at me with thinly veiled condescension. “Right,”I mumbled and glanced at Marshall, who was watching me with a warm knowing.
