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“Because you were here. You used to live here, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t live here,” I correct her, closing the car door and letting her lead the way up the steps. “But I spent a lot of time on the estate with your mum.”
“You knew my papa Lowell.”
I smile. “I did.”
“Mummy always says how much he’d have loved to meet me. All of us.”
“I think so, too. He’d have loved your chaos.”
“Do you like it?” she asks, a slight trepidation in the way she gazes up at me.
I stop on the steps and bend down, desperately wanting to pull her in for a hug. “I think it might be the best thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Really?”
“Really,” I promise.
Her face transforms. She rubs her stomach. “I had butterflies.”
“Can I tell you a secret, Waverley?”
She nods, getting closer. “I get butterflies, too. Every time I think about being your daddy.” I swallow, loving and hating and dying a little inside at the way that word makes me feel. “But then you show up, like you did in my room last night when you read to me or just now when you got here, telling me about your day, and I forget all about the butterflies.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She chuckles, leaning back.
Of course she doesn’t. I smile with her. “You make me really happy.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, she leans up and cuddles my neck. I close my eyes, dropping my right crutch and wrapping my arm around her. It’s the first hug she’s ever given me.
And fuck, I’d give anything to lift her into my arms and hold her properly.
“If you stay this time,” she mutters into my ear. “I can try to do that forever.”
I pull back, looking into her eyes. “I’m not going to go anywhere. Not now. I won’t disap—”
I cut myself off, knowing I’ve made promises like that before and failed in meeting every single one of them.
Failed them both.
“I want to make you happy, too,” I say instead, knowing it’s all that matters.
And I will. The moment she ran down those steps that first day and pulled on the car door to get to me, I knew that I’d spend the rest of my life rebuilding everything I took from her.
“Can I show you my bird?”
“You have a bird?” I frown.
She grins, stalking up the steps to the house. “Wait here. The nest is around the back of the house, and I have to change out of my uniform, or Mum gets mad.” She pauses, as if remembering something, stepping back toward me. “And don’t tell her about Mingo—she doesn’t know.”
“Who’s Mingo?” I frown.
“My bird!”
“Why is it called Mingo?”
“You’ll see.”
