“You can speak the truth without being mean, but yes, I would tell you the truth.”
Amanda Jane stuffed her feet into her slippers. “Okay, but now it’s time for you to get ready.”
“I am ready.”
Amanda Jane shook her head. “Your jeans have a hole.” She stuck her finger in the hole and tickled Gina’s knee.
Gina squealed and grabbed her niece, tickling her in return. Amanda Jane giggled while she struggled to free herself.
“Did you brush your teeth?”
She nodded. “Did you brush yours?”
Gina found the tension draining out of her. “It’s not my bedtime yet.”
“No, but we should be pretty. You always told me when we meet new people we should smell good.”
“I’m brushing everything. Hair. Teeth.” She puckered her lips. “Mustache.”
Amanda Jane giggled. “Eww. Girls don’t have mustaches.”
“Some do, but that’s what laser hair removal is for.”
Amanda Jane nodded sagely as if she were the one handing out the advice.
Gina was brushing her hair when the screen door rattled against the framing under a heavy knock.
Amanda Jane squealed and her blue eyes lit up. “He’s here.”
Her heart ached for her. This was all so bittersweet.
Reed stood haloed in the yellow light as it cast bright warmth over the hard planes of his features. Her eyes were drawn to the square angles of his wide shoulders and the way the sleeves of his polo shirt stretched over his biceps.
Gina tried not to notice everything about him that turned her on because he wasn’t here for her. None of this was about her.
Even though her mouth had gone dry and the words she had died in her throat.
“Hey.”
It was such a simple word. He’d said it to her a million times, but this time it was devastating. Both because it was a reminder of times past and while it was spoken in his voice, her attention was once again drawn back to his body.
That and time had made him a stranger.
“Hey, yourself.” Also something she’d said a million times. It was strange and awkward.
“Come in? Apparently I need to change clothes. I have a hole in my jeans,” she babbled.
Ugh. She hated babbling. Men didn’t make her babble. She didn’t have time or room in her life to be a silly girl over any guy, especially not Amanda Jane’s father. Gina decided polo shirts were the devil. It was the shirt’s fault.
He nodded and stepped inside.
Amanda Jane tilted her head back to look up at him. He must seem like a giant to her.
That twisted something deep in her guts. That’s what a father should be. Every child should think that their father was some kind of invincible hero. She used to daydream about her own when she was little. Gina imagined him to be tall and strong and that her mother had somehow hidden them from him; that’s why he hadn’t come to rescue them.
But as she’d grown older, she’d realized it was just a fairy tale like any other and had no place in the realities of her life.
Inside, his presence was even more disconcerting. She hadn’t noticed it at the restaurant or in Emma’s office because it was filled with other people, but alone together, he dominated the space. He made her feel small and vulnerable without even trying.
Unfortunately, she was both intrigued and uncomfortable. It would all be so much easier to bear if she could get away from the intrigued part.
They eyed each other, both seeming to be wary, but unsure how to proceed.
“Hi.” Amanda Jane made her presence known.
Reed smiled at her, a genuine expression that completely changed his face. He wasn’t just the cute boy she’d crushed on. She was very aware that he was a man—a handsome, powerful man.
Not that it mattered. She tried to push her brain into EMT mode—where she looked at bodies clinically. Yet, there was still nothing clinical about her reaction to him.
“Gina-bee said you’re my daddy.”
Gina waited to see what he would say.
He nodded. “I am. Is that okay?”
“I think so. I like your face,” Amanda Jane confessed without the slightest bit of hesitation.
He sank down to his haunches, eye level with her. “I like your face, too.”
Gina was suddenly hyperaware of the house, the shabby state of things. She looked around the small farmhouse. She’d been happy here, but now that he was coming, Gina found it lacking. She saw every flaw in the molding, the tears in the screen on the front porch, the dilapidated fence posts, the scratches on the wood floors...
But this was also where Amanda Jane learned to crawl, the front yard was where she made mud pies, and those tears in the screens were from the feral cats she always left food and water for.
Even though it was a rental, so much of their lives were entwined in the place and if Reed didn’t like it, she didn’t care.
He came from worse than this and she wouldn’t dare let him judge her.
More important, she wouldn’t judge herself.
“Gina-bee said you would.”
“She knows me pretty well sometimes.”
Amanda Jane nodded solemnly. “She knows most everything.”
Gina blushed. “Not everything.”
Reed looked up at her. “Probably everything.”
Amanda Jane yawned. “You should have come earlier. Then you could read me a story.”
“I could read you one now,” he offered.
“Oh, no. I’ll get too excited and I won’t sleep. Story before bath. You could come tomorrow.” Amanda Jane looked down at her toes. “If you wanted to.”
Gina sighed. “I thought tomorrow was our day.”
“Please?”
“Honey, he might be busy. We’ll see, okay?” Gina didn’t want her to get her hopes up, didn’t want her to get too excited about something that might not happen.
Amanda Jane looked up at him and mouthed Frogfest.
Frogfest dated back to the first settlers in the area when masses of frogs would converge on the riverbank and low marshy areas around the river to mate and they’d sing a lively tune long into the night. If times had been lean, the frogs provided much needed sustenance during hardship. Although, the modern celebrations didn’t include as many frog dishes, but for the occasional vendors selling deep-fried frog legs.
Gina found herself inviting him along. She couldn’t resist the absolute joy on the girl’s face and they needed to get used to each other—Amanda Jane and Reed. It wouldn’t work if they were just suddenly flung into the same household.
“You could come.”
“I’d like that.”
They’d be playing happy little family. She wondered if there’d ever been a bigger lie.
“Good night,” the little girl chirped.
“Where are you going? I thought you wanted to stay up to meet him?” Gina asked, wondering if there was something wrong.