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“Hi, baby girl.” Knox Prosper crouched so that he was eye level with his five-year-old daughter.
Right now, Ruby had her freckled nose scrunched, and her brown eyes, so much like her mom’s, narrowed at him.
“You forgot my birf-day.”
Heat raced through Knox, but he pushed away the guilt. One of those books he’d read about rekindling broken relationships had counseled to not let the first emotion become too overwhelming. Guilt, embarrassment, regret—they were all right there, burning up his chest right now.
“I’m sorry about that, baby.” Knox tucked a bit of curly hair behind Ruby’s ear. They were outside his parents’ home—neutral turf for them both—and Knox was sitting with his daughter on the porch swing. “But there’s one good thing about a late birthday wish.”
Ruby’s eyes rounded. “Like what?”
She was getting too smart for her own good.
“It means you get even more presents.” Knox reached for the sack that Ruby had been eying the past few minutes. “How old are you?”
“Five,” Ruby said, sounding as if she were personally offended that her own daddy didn’t know her age.
Knox held back a chuckle. “Five, huh? Well, looks like I guessed right.” He reached into the sack and pulled out a wrapped gift. “Because that’s how many presents I got in here.”
“Five presents?” Ruby said. “All for me?”
“That’s right, baby girl,” Knox said. “All for you. And I hope you can forgive me for not calling you last week.”
Ruby was grinning, and Knox wondered for the thousandth time how he ever got so lucky to have a daughter like her. She was literally the sun in his life.
“I forgive you, Daddy.” Ruby’s small arms wrapped around his neck in a chokehold.
Even though he couldn’t exactly breathe, he pulled her closer. “Thank you.”
“Can I open them now?” Ruby pulled back, her brown eyes as serious as he’d ever seen them.
His mouth quirked. “Yes, right now.”
He was pretty sure this was considered bribing his kid, buying her love or whatnot. And he was pretty sure that his ex-wife, Macie, could hear every word of their conversation through the front screen door. Later, she’d also tell about what he’d done wrong, Macie wouldn’t fail him in that. It might have bugged him—no, infuriated him—a few months ago. But now…
It wasn’t like Knox had done a one-eighty in his life. He still had plenty of flaws, and some of them major, but he’d done maybe a one-ten? And he was working on the other seventy degrees of change. Because if there was one thing he did want in life, even more than his aspirations on the pro-rodeo circuit, it was to do right by the little girl sitting next to him.
“A unicorn?” Ruby exclaimed. “I love it, Daddy! Now I have two unicorns.”
Knox bit back a groan. Of course, he had no idea which toys his daughter did or didn’t have. How could he? He’d never been inside of her bedroom at the home she currently lived in with Macie and Holt. And Knox didn’t have any immediate plans to change that, either.
Now, he watched Ruby open the second gift.
“Bubbles!” she squealed. “I love bubbles!”
Knox chuckled. His daughter wasted no time in sliding off the porch swing and opening the bubbles. But she’d opened them on an angle, and half the liquid spilled out.
“Whoa, there,” Knox said, grasping the bottle and tilting it upright. “Maybe we can do this after you open the other presents.”
“It spilled,” Ruby said, her small teeth biting down on her lower lip.
“Just a little,” Knox soothed. “We can make some more, if you want.”
Her forehead wrinkled as her pretty brown eyes studied him. “Do you know how to make bubbles?”
How hard could it be? “Sure do, baby girl.”
“Okay.” Ruby set the sudsy bottle into his hands.
