Page 62 of Grumpy Lumberjack’s Secret

“Again, Papa!”

I spun her again. And again. Each time she laughed louder, each time my chest got tighter, each time the thing inside me that had been frozen for a decade thawed a little more.

When the song ended, I knelt down and handed her the bouquet.

“For you,” I said.

She took the flowers with both hands, holding them against her chest like they were made of gold. She stared at them, then at me, and then she threw her arms around my neck and squeezed so tight I could barely breathe.

“Thank you, Papa. They are the prettiest flowers in the whole world.”

“Second prettiest,” I said, and looked at Chloe.

Chloe was standing by the table with her hand over her mouth and tears in her eyes. She was trying not to cry and failing completely, the way she always did when something caught her off guard, and the sight of her standing there in her pajamas with tears running down her face and candlelight in her hair made my chest ache in the best possible way.

I stood up. Picked up the second bouquet. The white roses and pink peonies. I walked to her and held out my hand.

She laughed. A wet, teary laugh that she pressed her free hand against her mouth to contain, and then she reached out and took my hand.

“You are sweeter than my cookies before,” she said.

“I am leveling up how you pursued me, right?”

She laughed again, louder this time, and I pulled her close and we danced. Not the clumsy shuffle I had done with Emma. Something slower. Her head against my chest, my arm around her waist, our feet barely moving. The music was soft and the kitchen was warm and the candles were throwing shadows on the walls and she fit against me the way she always had, perfectly, like every angle of her body had been measured to match mine.

I could feel her heart beating against my chest. Fast. Her hand gripped my shirt at the shoulder, holding on, and I pressed my face into her hair and breathed in vanilla and warmth and the smell of home.

When the song ended, I handed her the flowers.

She took them, brought them to her face, and inhaled. Her eyes closed. When she opened them, they were shining, and the look she gave me, the look that said she saw me, really saw me, not the grumpy exterior but the man underneath who was trying his hardest to be worthy of her, made something settle inside me that had been unsettled for a long time.

I kissed her. Soft. Slow. Tasting the salt of her tears on her lips.

“Oooh, they are kissing again,” Emma announced from the table where she had already started eating pancakes, her bouquet propped up against the orange juice like a centerpiece. “Papa, you are so lovey.”

“Eat your breakfast, Emma.”

We sat down and ate. Together. The three of us at the table with flowers and candles and music still playing softly, and it felt like the most normal thing in the world and the most extraordinary thing at the same time.

Emma ate three pancakes. She talked with her mouth full about the flowers and the dancing and how she was going to tell everyone at school that her Papa danced with her in the kitchen, and I let her talk because the sound of her voice was something I was still learning to absorb, still learning to believe was real and mine.

“Papa,” Emma said between bites of bacon. “Where is your family? Your mama and papa?”

The question was simple. Casual. Asked with the directness of a child who did not know that some questions carried weight.

“My parents live about two hours from here,” I said. “A small town called Ridgewood. My dad used to be a carpenter. My mom was a teacher.”

“Like Mama!”

“Like Mama. She taught third grade for thirty years.”

“Can we visit them? I want to meet them. Do they know about me? Do they like dinosaurs?”

I looked at Chloe. She met my eyes and I saw the question there, the uncertainty, the awareness that meeting my parents meant another step forward into something that was becoming more real by the day.

“We can visit them,” I said. “Soon.”

Emma cheered. Chloe smiled. And the warmth in the kitchen, the candles and the flowers and the music and the three of us, felt like something I wanted to protect with everything I had.