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Authors: Rachel Hauck
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differently?
Say no to Ava’s broadcast career? Network News had really been starting to promote her, give her the spotlight.
Tell her no, she couldn’t travel to dangerous, war-torn places? As if he could stop her.
Say no to the romantic, sexy evening when Ava had suggested they break their no-children policy “just to see” if they could make a baby? Nine months later, the blue-eyed cherub named Tracey-Love came whimpering into Heath’s world and rained on the barren places of his heart.
What would he do differently so he wouldn’t be sitting here now, alone and widowed, in a dimly lit lowcountry cottage owned by a baseball-bat-wielding strawberry blonde?
Nothing.
An image of Elle Garvey sashayed across his mind’s eye, her hair falling over her shoulder, framing the sides of her slender face. Fiery green eyes watched him. Wonder who’d snagged her? Lucky man. Or so he thought. Hard to judge rightly based on their brief encounter. But he’d been right about Ava the first time he laid eyes on her as she walked across Yale’s campus.
“D-daddy?”
Heath cocked his ear toward the small voice coming down the hall. “In here.”
A rosy-faced Tracey-Love with large, sleepy eyes padded across the hardwood to him, crawling onto the couch, her thumb resting in her mouth.
“Does your tummy hurt?” Heath slipped his feet to the floor and hunched forward to see her face. Since moving into the cottage, he’d avoided fast food as much as possible.
“No,” she muffled through her thumb, already drifting off.
Heath smoothed her hair, tight with tangles. He needed to work on keeping it combed, pinned back, or ponytailed, something. But it was so coarse and thick, downright exasperating.
TL’s thumb slipped from her mouth as her breathing grew easy and even. Heath gently nudged his forefinger through her cupped little hand, thinking how soft and small it was. Not just her hand, but Tracey-Love.
The committee of “everyone” had told him to be firm with her, force her to sleep in her own bed, keep a strict routine. But she cried and begged to stay up with him, all at once afraid of the city’s night sounds and every shifting shadow.
So sue him, he loved his daughter and didn’t think chaining her to her bed, half terrified, at the age of four, constituted tough love. Time would heal her wounds and abate her fears.
Shoot, he didn’t like sleeping in his bed either, and the city’s night sounds terrified him too.
Six nights out of seven, Heath woke up in the wee hours of the morning stretched out on the couch with Tracey-Love sleeping on his chest.
Raising a daughter alone was never a part of the plan. Lord, if You knew, why didn’t You give me a son?
Heath upped the TV volume a little. The contestant up now was his favorite, if he could claim a favorite. Looking back down at TL, the blue reflection of the TV screen covering her hair, he couldn’t imagine one day she’d be grown, leaving him for her own adventures. Another man, even.
A month ago, he’d carefully Googled “girl stuff ” like puberty, periods, and the potential number of hours he could expect a preteen to spend on the phone. One of the women’s health sites listed stats that almost gave him a coronary. Menstruation may start as young as ten. Heath had clicked out of the Internet, stumbled to the kitchen, and wolfed down a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.
Ten? That was less than six years from now. Ten?
And she may show signs of breasts as early as eight.
He’d dumped another glob of Hershey’s chocolate into the carton. Ava, I can’t do this alone.
Heath and his brother had a completely testosterone upbringing. Raised by their father after their mother abandoned the family for a string of deadbeat husbands she thought would take her on an adventure, he knew next to nothing about women until he fell in love with Ava their sophomore year at Yale.
His education had consisted of Dad’s advice—“Never trust a dame”—and
Say no to Ava’s broadcast career? Network News had really been starting to promote her, give her the spotlight.
Tell her no, she couldn’t travel to dangerous, war-torn places? As if he could stop her.
Say no to the romantic, sexy evening when Ava had suggested they break their no-children policy “just to see” if they could make a baby? Nine months later, the blue-eyed cherub named Tracey-Love came whimpering into Heath’s world and rained on the barren places of his heart.
What would he do differently so he wouldn’t be sitting here now, alone and widowed, in a dimly lit lowcountry cottage owned by a baseball-bat-wielding strawberry blonde?
Nothing.
An image of Elle Garvey sashayed across his mind’s eye, her hair falling over her shoulder, framing the sides of her slender face. Fiery green eyes watched him. Wonder who’d snagged her? Lucky man. Or so he thought. Hard to judge rightly based on their brief encounter. But he’d been right about Ava the first time he laid eyes on her as she walked across Yale’s campus.
“D-daddy?”
Heath cocked his ear toward the small voice coming down the hall. “In here.”
A rosy-faced Tracey-Love with large, sleepy eyes padded across the hardwood to him, crawling onto the couch, her thumb resting in her mouth.
“Does your tummy hurt?” Heath slipped his feet to the floor and hunched forward to see her face. Since moving into the cottage, he’d avoided fast food as much as possible.
“No,” she muffled through her thumb, already drifting off.
Heath smoothed her hair, tight with tangles. He needed to work on keeping it combed, pinned back, or ponytailed, something. But it was so coarse and thick, downright exasperating.
TL’s thumb slipped from her mouth as her breathing grew easy and even. Heath gently nudged his forefinger through her cupped little hand, thinking how soft and small it was. Not just her hand, but Tracey-Love.
The committee of “everyone” had told him to be firm with her, force her to sleep in her own bed, keep a strict routine. But she cried and begged to stay up with him, all at once afraid of the city’s night sounds and every shifting shadow.
So sue him, he loved his daughter and didn’t think chaining her to her bed, half terrified, at the age of four, constituted tough love. Time would heal her wounds and abate her fears.
Shoot, he didn’t like sleeping in his bed either, and the city’s night sounds terrified him too.
Six nights out of seven, Heath woke up in the wee hours of the morning stretched out on the couch with Tracey-Love sleeping on his chest.
Raising a daughter alone was never a part of the plan. Lord, if You knew, why didn’t You give me a son?
Heath upped the TV volume a little. The contestant up now was his favorite, if he could claim a favorite. Looking back down at TL, the blue reflection of the TV screen covering her hair, he couldn’t imagine one day she’d be grown, leaving him for her own adventures. Another man, even.
A month ago, he’d carefully Googled “girl stuff ” like puberty, periods, and the potential number of hours he could expect a preteen to spend on the phone. One of the women’s health sites listed stats that almost gave him a coronary. Menstruation may start as young as ten. Heath had clicked out of the Internet, stumbled to the kitchen, and wolfed down a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.
Ten? That was less than six years from now. Ten?
And she may show signs of breasts as early as eight.
He’d dumped another glob of Hershey’s chocolate into the carton. Ava, I can’t do this alone.
Heath and his brother had a completely testosterone upbringing. Raised by their father after their mother abandoned the family for a string of deadbeat husbands she thought would take her on an adventure, he knew next to nothing about women until he fell in love with Ava their sophomore year at Yale.
His education had consisted of Dad’s advice—“Never trust a dame”—and
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