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Jack looks between us. “Why are you looking at Mom weird?”

Dane doesn’t blink. “She’s pretty.”

Jack accepts this immediately. “So is Maisie.”

“Yeah.”

“Rosie’s wrinkly.”

“She’s a baby.”

“Was I wrinkly?”

“Very.”

I laugh.

Dane takes Rosie back from me and kisses the top of her tiny head. He does that constantly.

Touches them.

Checks them.

Counts them when we leave places.

Walks through their rooms before he goes to bed.

The outlaw of Devil’s Peak turned out to be an embarrassingly soft father.

Not that anyone is stupid enough to tell him.

By nine thirty that night, our house is finally quiet.

Jack is asleep sideways across his bed.

Maisie required four books, two drinks of water, and a detailed investigation into whether monsters can climb stairs.

Dane informed her monsters don’t come to our house.

She asked why.

He said, “Because Daddy lives here.”

Apparently that was sufficient.

I shower and climb into bed. Dane doesn’t follow. Ten minutes later, I find him in Rosie’s room.

He stands beside the crib in gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt, arms crossed over his chest, watching.

I walk up behind him and wrap my arms around his waist. “You know she’s still going to be there in the morning.”

“Making sure.”

“She’s been asleep for an hour.”

“Yeah.”

“You checked her twenty minutes ago.”