Page 39 of Daddy, Take Me Away
Taking her hand in one of his, he offered her the ring. “Chloe Hardt, will you do this useless man the honor of becoming my wife?”
She grabbed her own hands, ignoring the ring for fear she might be completely misreading the entire incredulous situation. “Your wife? Really?”
“For real.” His smile this time was genuine. “This lad desperately wants to be your husband, if you'll let him.”
She couldn't breathe. She couldn't believe her ears, either. Lowering her voice, painfully aware of how pin-drop quiet the gallery had become from the moment he'd proposed, she whispered, “Will, um… Will you still be m-my…”
“Daddy?” he guessed. “Is there any other way for us?”
Hamish burst up onto his feet in time to catch when Chloe launched herself at him. Her arms wrapped his neck as she burrowed into his chest, luxuriating in the warmth of an embrace she once had thought she'd never feel again.
“Yes, Daddy,” she whispered, hardly able to hear her own voice under the cheers and applause that erupted around.
“Only at the Grant Gallery,” she heard Maddy self-plug above the celebrating din.
Chloe didn't care. Everything she could ever want, she'd just found, right here in Hamish’s arms. It was in the way he bent to pick her completely off the floor, and in the rumble of his voice as he whispered, “Daddy's got you, wee one. Daddy will always keep you safe.”
Just so long as he always kept her with him, nothing else mattered.
“I love you,” she sobbed into his shoulder. “You know I can paint anywhere, right?”
Setting her down on her feet, he held her far enough from him for their eyes to meet.
“The last thing I want is to rip you from your family,” he said, smoothing her hair back out of her face.
Chloe shook her head, half laughing as she wiped her face. “Daddy, if my family wants to find me, they can look me up online. I've never matched up to my siblings’ talent in my family's eyes. What point is there in staying here, hoping someday they'll change their minds, when I already know my happiness lies wherever you are? Besides, New York City has ordinances against keeping sheep in our apartment.”
“Och, well then, who needs New York?” he scoffed. “Let’s go, milseán. Let Daddy show you how good the rest of our lives together can be.”
Giving him one last hug, she finally made herself let go. “I'm ready, Daddy. Take me home.”
“Always,” he rumbled, taking her by the hand just like a Daddy should. They were halfway to the door when he added, “We'll have to come back in the morning, though. I need to pick up my paintings.”
Her head snapped up. She stared at him with big eyes. “Your paintings?”
“Damn right, mine,” he chuckled, half amused, half appalled. “I'm practically making love to you on the flyboard! What were you thinking? Only wall that thing’s hanging on damn well better be mine. Lord, and the bath? You're in naught but your skin, woman!”
“It’s all shadow!” she protested, grinning. “You can't see anything.”
“I see plenty,” he countered, leading her to the door. “No one gets to see that but me, you ken?”
His hand dropped from hers, giving her bottom a subtle swat that Chloe had no doubt everyone behind them saw. She didn't care, that thrilling warning was for her and her alone.
“Yes, Daddy,” she giggled, loving it. Loving him.
Together, they went home.
Epilogue
‘Proposal at Grant Gallery Wins Standing Ovation,’ read the headline of the New York Times’ newspaper article Chloe carefully clipped out. Folding it over, she glued it to the small placard Daddy had made for her.
Blowing to help it dry, she carried it from the kitchen table into the living room where the portrait of them on the flyboard now lived. Permanently, according to Daddy, or for at least as long as they both should live. After which if their children put it back in the public eye, as he was fond of saying, he was determined to haunt them.
Chloe looked up at it, admiring the details she had put into every brush stroke that had slowly and lovingly brought them to life.
She smiled fondly over the memory, but her need to possess this portrait was nowhere near as strong as it had been back at Maddy's gallery. After all, she had the real thing now: Daddy Hamish, in the flesh. His ring was on her hand, his handprints were on her bottom, and all the memories they were making as they walked hand in hand through life together had filled her heart to bursting.
She couldn't imagine her life without him in it, and she thanked God every day for all the things that had gone wrong on her vacation. Who knows if they’d have fallen in love if it had gone perfectly.
