Page 99 of A Dream for Daphne

DAMN PROUD OF HIM

“Ican’t believe only one more week,” Daphne said the next day. “I’ve gotten used to seeing you here. Not that you come and hang out with me.”

Abe was on the property most days, but not always for long. More to check in than to work.

She knew he had a lot going on and was trying to fit in as many jobs as he could before winter.

She had to say she was damn proud of him and how hard he worked.

Proud to be with someone who had the same work ethic as her.

“It’s gone as well as it could,” he said. “You’ll miss seeing this smiling face, right? I mean I’ll still be coming to your bed.”

But it wouldn’t be as frequent, she knew. He stayed overnight when he planned on being here first thing in the morning.

Once there was no need for him to be working on the property, then it’d be out of his way as much as it would be for her to be in town.

She’d do it though to spend time with him.

“I will miss your smiling face,” she said. “Holly, no.”

The little girl was running in circles and getting herself dizzy. It was her new game.

“It’s fun,” Holly said, her arms out wide spinning and spinning, then she tripped and fell down giggling.

“Hope she doesn’t throw up,” he said.

“No,” she said. “She only does it once or twice and then she’ll lie there watching the birds.”

“That one is pretty in the tree,” Holly said, pointing to a bird that flew off.

“See,” Daphne said.

“You’ve got a good handle on them,” he said.

She was holding Tatum and feeding him his bottle. The little man was growing fast, his big blue eyes watching everything going on around them.

Abe reached his finger down and ran it on Tatum’s arm. The baby smiled around the bottle and then kept drinking.

“I love my job. I know it’s probably silly to some, but they feel like my kids even though I know they aren’t.”

“That’s what makes you so good at your job,” he said. “You want your own kids, right?”

“You know I do,” she said. “Not anytime soon though. Good lord, I need to be able to do this job.”

No way she wanted to have to take time off for something like that.

She didn’t want to risk her job when she loved it so much.

Did she have vacation time? Yep. She did.

And Reese was always here if she had to take a day off.

But she wasn’t going to take advantage of the fact that her bosses had flexible schedules or that there was a backup nanny that Rose had.

She’d even had all four kids one day last week for a few hours because Julie was off.

It wasn’t hard to watch them all, but it took some maneuvering.

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