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Closing on the kitchen, the sound of off-key nursery rhymes being sung reached my ears. Two singers, an older, lower voice combined with a squeaky 2-year-old’s.
I finally stepped into the kitchen. Alex was frying some bacon and eggs on the stove while dancing back and forth. He shot me a grin as he spotted me.
Kadie sat in her booster seat at the table, a half-eaten bowl of cereal in front of her, but she seemed more concerned with clapping, giggling, and occasionally singing along with Alex.
They continued on this way for a good minute before their makeshift medley finally ended, and Kadie threw her arms up in a cheer.
Emotion shot through me, blasting out all my sadness and concern. Joy, unbridled joy all but exploded out, and it took all my self-control not to start crying tears of happiness.
A person could never know what they were missing if they’d never experienced it to begin with. There, at that moment, as I saw Alex doing something so normal, cooking breakfast while entertaining his daughter, I understood what a complete family could be and how it could make you feel.
I’d had a hole in my heart that I’d thought I’d filled with friends and other family, but I realized they’d only covered it and never filled it.
Complete love. That’s the only way I could describe what I was feeling. My family finally felt complete, and I could have almost slapped myself for resisting for long as I had.
Still, I didn’t spend much time worrying about the mistakes of the past. The beautiful sight before me wouldn’t let such darkness hang in my mind. I also realized something very important. My heart now belonged to Alex.
He turned from his bacon and eggs to shoot me another smile. He walked over to me and gave me a sweet kiss. I gave him a sweet kiss back, and it was only my daughter’s presence that stopped me from running my hands all over his body and sticking my tongue down his throat.
“Good morning, Aspyn,” Alex said.
I sat down at the table after kissing Kadie on the forehead.
“Good morning, Alex. Good morning, sweetie.”
“Good morning, Mama,” Kadie said. With the singing now long over, she looked disappointed and started slurping up her cereal again.
Alex dished us up some bacon and eggs. My stomach rumbled again as the aroma from my plate rose and met my nose.
We adults didn’t talk for a couple of minutes as we both dug into our food. Neither of us had eaten anything since the pizza last night, and that was a good number of hours earlier.
People said hunger is a good spice, and that might have been the case, as I could have sworn the bacon and eggs were some of the best I’d ever tasted. Or maybe my new man was very good at handling his breakfast cooking.
After eating half my food and draining a cup of coffee, my thoughts drifted away from the positive to something far more negative.
“How did you sleep?” I asked quietly. I wasn’t sure if it was too forward a question or not, but I’d invited him over for one main purpose, and as much as I adored seeing him make Kadie happy, I needed to know if I’d actually helped him.
I’d do whatever I needed to help him sleep with nightmares, even if that meant he never stayed over at my place again.
“I slept great,” he said. “Best sleep I’ve had in a while.” He leaned toward me. “Not a single nightmare,” he whispered.
I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. “You’re sure?” I whispered back.
Alex nodded and then leaned back.
“Big plans today?” I said, figuring there was no reason to continue talking about the nightmares.
Also, I didn’t want Kadie to get too suspicious about all our whispering. Not that she’d figure what we were saying, but for all I knew, she’d think we were preparing to buy a puppy or something.
“Just stuff on the ranch and work on the house,” he said. “Same as every day. I’ve got the easy stuff done on the house with most of the important and immediate stuff on the inside taken care of. Yard crap can wait.” He shrugged. “I might grab a few goats and let them handle it.”
“I want a goat!” Kadie shouted, then laughed.
“Don’t we all?” Alex said with a grin.
We both laughed. Kadie laughed again since we were.
“What about the outside?”
