The little girl’s right hand shot into the air, pulling downward in a deliberate motion. “Woo-woo! All ba-board!”
Tate’s eyes twinkled with pride as he squeezed Kayla tight before looking over at Phoebe. “So, Mommy, where should we go on Kayla’s train?”
“Oh!” A pain, not unlike the other two, shot through her stomach, nearly launching her to her feet.
“'Oh’? We don’t know where that is, do we, Kayla?” He jiggled the little girl on his forearm, laughing at her squeals. “Try again, Mommy.”
Phoebe held her breath as the pain slowly subsided, enabling her to string a sentence together. “I’d go anywhere so long as I could be with the two of you…but we need to make a delivery first.”
“What, now?” Tate asked, getting to his feet.
Pushing herself up from the chair, she slid a hand to her stomach. “Don’t you mean who?”
“Nooo.” Tate’s eyebrows dipped as he looked at her, confusion replacing the playful sparkle in his eyes.
Bart crossed his arms in front of his chest and shook his head. “Son. You’re smarter than this.”
“What?” Tate set Kayla down on the ground and held his hands up, palms out. “I don’t have a clue what either of you are talking about….” Confusion gave way to understanding before getting booted away by an entirely different sparkle. “It’s time?”
“Yep.”
Tate raised his arms into the air in victory, then lunged forward, sliding his arm around Phoebe’s waist and guiding her toward the door. They’d made it about three feet when he stopped to look over his shoulder, his breath warm against her ear. “Dad? Mr. Borden?”
“We’ll take good care of her, son, don’t you worry.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
They made it a few steps closer to the door when Tate stopped once again. This time, she felt his palms on her shoulders, turning her to face him. “I love you, Phoebe Jennings.”
“Oh! Oh!” She gripped her stomach with one hand, his arm with the other.
“I’ll take that as a ditto.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4669-4
KAYLA’S DADDY
Copyright © 2010 by Laura Bradford.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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