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“I’ll be waiting.”
Zara heads down the stairs before me, and I breathe a sigh of relief when she yells Willow’s name. We need to be more careful when the girls are around. We could’ve been easily caught, and I don’t know how I would explain the situation to them.
I stay in the loft, moving hay around until I’ve created a wall facing the interior of the barn. I fully intend to bring Zara up here again but want to make sure that we are barricaded from prying eyes.
When I finally walk into the house, it’s noisy, and I find that I love it. I have missed the constant chatter. The feel the house has when people are in it and the love that comes with having a family.
I find Zara and the girls in the kitchen, baking. I kiss Willow and Stormy on the tops of their heads and can’t help myself when it comes to Zara. I kiss her on the lips, much to the snickering and dare I say, delight, of my children.
“Daddy’s kissing Zara,” Willow mocks.
“Yes, he is,” I can’t help but say.
“Does this mean you’re like an official couple?” Stormy asks.
I look at Zara for confirmation. “Yes, we are. Are you girls okay with that?”
Stormy shrugs, but nods while Willow yells out a resounding yes!
“Perfect. Let me go fire up the grill.” I take the tray of meat that I put together this morning out of the refrigerator and head back out to the deck. The window is open, and I can hear my girls, all three of them talking.
Zara is inserting herself into their lives, asking about Stormy’s training and what Willow did with her Memaw. I crack a smile when Zara uses the southern term for grandma, loving that she’s trying to acclimate.
When Stormy asks Zara about continuing her dance studies, telling her that she’s afraid to bring it up to me, I feel about two feet tall. I never meant for Stormy to only focus on barrel racing, but knew she has a passion for that as well.
“I can make some calls for you tomorrow if that’d be okay,” Zara suggests.
“I’d like that. I think I can do both,” Stormy says.
“You can do anything you want,” I tell her as I stand in the doorway. “You can do both or either one.” I shrug. “Or maybe something different. The sky’s the limit, Stormy. I will support whatever.”
It’s at that moment that I know I’ve finally broken through with Stormy. She comes up to me and wraps her arms around me.
“I love you, Daddy,” she whispers in my ear.
She will never know how much I love her. It can never be told in songs, words, or even material things. The day she realizes the depth of my love will be the day that she becomes a mother and can experience the instant connection she has with her own child.
Before I can tell her that I love her, Willow wraps her arms around both of us, joining in the lovefest.
“Come on, Zara,” Stormy says, inviting her into our unit.
Right there, in my kitchen I have two of the most important women in my life, welcoming the one I’m in love with into our family.
zara
Thirty-One
To saythe past few months have been a whirlwind would be a gross understatement. I went from being happily married, to finding out my husband was cheating on me, to meeting the most amazing man and his children, to falling in love with them.
I’ve been in love with Levi for some time now, but falling in maternal love with his daughters has taken me to a whole other level. It’s because of the girls I haven’t gone back to Los Angeles as planned. I was going to stay a month in Nashville and then head home, back to my life, my music, and whatever else waited for me.
Levi and I even sat down and discussed how our relationship would work long distance. No more than two weeks apart, and with the girls out of school, they would travel to me. We even talked about taking vacations together. On paper, it’s a fail-safe way minus the part where we wouldn’t be together. That part didn’t sit well with me, and I have yet to leave Nashville.
I’m comfortable here. I love sitting on the deck and listening to the birds sing, watching Stormy race, reading with Willow, and of course, watching Levi do his chores. Who would’ve thought that chores would be so sexy? Not me. I can’t recall the last time I saw Van lift a finger. Everything in our lives was contracted out. With Levi, he likes to get his hands dirty and even though he has a crew that works for him daily, he’s still outside busting his ass.
And while he’s working, I’m inside making lunch for everyone or preparing dinner. I have found that I love to cook and bake, and the girls love it too. We’ve made it a game of who can come up with the craziest recipe because we know that Levi will try anything, and he loves it all, even when it’s the grossest thing ever.
But we laugh, all of us. It’s the best sound in the world. And from what I can tell, the girls are happy. Stormy is dancing and barrel racing, which makes her father very happy. Willow has decided that she’ll start dance in the fall, but also wants to play sports. Both girls love to shop, like crazy mall shopping once every other day.
