Page 37 of Her Surprise Protector
“Do you like it, Honey? It’s your room! Your room,” Elena repeated, pointing at Bree. “See?” She opened a big wooden chest to show Bree her toys. Bree’s eyes lit up, and she immediately pulled a stuffed horse, a small dollhouse and a plastic car out of the chest. I didn’t really see how those three things could be playmates, but Bree evidently did as she sat on the rug from her old bedroom and played.
“She’s going to love it here, and so am I…. Oh! I almost forgot. Remember how I told you Payton was looking for a house instead of living in a busy apartment complex? We talked, and she’s actually going to move into my old place. She would have been willing to take over the lease, but since you already paid it off, she’s signing a new contract for a year. So, I’ll still get to see the place! Michael isn’t one to run off… like you know who.” Elena glanced over at her daughter.
“That’s wonderful!” My enthusiasm surprised her, but I had good reason to be excited. If Elena could go back and visit her old house, that would erase any worry or doubt she had about moving in with me. I would have to remember to thank Payton when I had the chance.
Everything was falling into place, just as I had expected. Elena had a way of making that happen for me.
* * *
The next few months were a blur. I had never seen myself as a good father. Honestly, I knew that I could be hard on people, I was impatient, and I got angry too easily sometimes. But somehow, I found that when I was around Bree, I could never be anything but tender and understanding. I wanted her to trust me and love me like her mother did.
Sure enough, after a month or two, Bree didn’t mind at all when I stayed home with her while Elena ran an errand or went shopping with Payton. I had become a permanent fixture in Bree’s life. And I intended to stay that way and be the best father I could be.
A month after Elena and Bree moved in with me, Bree’s third birthday arrived. I knew what she wanted, Elena knew what she wanted, Payton knew what she wanted – in fact, the entire world knew what she wanted because Bree told everyone who would listen she was getting a puppy for her birthday.
I had never thought the day would come when I would watch an animal of any kind cavort around my spotless mansion. But lo and behold, on Bree’s third birthday, a puppy jumped out of a box with a bow tied around its collar. Bree shrieked with excitement, and the two young creatures explored the house together. Elena giggled and took a picture to post on Facebook when I ran after them playfully.
“You are such a pushover,” Elena commented. She had made it a point not to try and convince me Bree needed a dog for her birthday. Since she was still little, we would have to take care of the puppy. Although we could get Bree to help us to a point - using the dog as a means to begin training her about responsibilities. Elena had anticipated the extra amount of work this would cause us both, and she hadn’t been willing to take Bree’s side on this one, rather remaining a neutral party until I made up my mind.
“Only for you and Bree,” I argued. Elena knew that I would have caved then and there if she had used her womanly ways to influence me. But Elena didn’t use my love for her like that.
Instead, Elena used our love to get cuddles at night, and she used it sometimes to get me to make breakfast in the morning after we had been up late, doing things in the privacy of our master bedroom. And sometimes, she used it to convince me to put down my laptop when I tried to work from home too much on my days off.
She never used it to push me into anything I might not really want to do or might inconvenience me. Elena didn’t manipulate and lie like so many of the women in my life had before her.
As I succinctly put it one night in January when it was freezing outside, and the wind howled around the mansion, while we cuddled warmly on the couch: “Where were you my whole life?”
She didn’t answer the question, and I didn’t push for one. It didn’t matter, because she was here now. Elena and her daughter made me the happiest man alive, and all I wanted to do was give that back to them twofold.
Then, one day, Elena came to me when I was shaving in the bathroom. She wordlessly handed me a plastic bag with two…thermometers?
Oh, no. No, no, no. Definitely not thermometers, unless someone had invented a thermometer that told you when you were going to be a father. Elena had shrieked when I picked her up and swan her around. “You’ve just made me the happiest guy on the planet!”
I had always wanted Elena to quit her job so she could have all the time she wanted with Bree, and she finally agreed shortly after learning that our family was about to increase in size. She liked to send me pictures of her growing belly and Bree playing while I was in Manhattan at work, reminding me of what I had to look forward to when I got home.
One day in the late spring when Elena’s baby bump had just become very noticeable, Elena, Bree and I were on Cooper’s beach – or our backyard - however you chose to look at it. The ocean wasn’t yet warm enough to swim in, but even chilly sand could make the perfect sandcastle. Armed with an assortment of buckets and shovels, Elena and I worked with Bree to build a castle any princess would be proud of.
I straightened, my back cracking as I admired our handiwork. “Beautiful,” I proclaimed, my eyes on the single sagging, cone-shaped roof.
“Amazing,” Elena added, hiding a smile at the dissolving ramparts.
“Butterflies!” Bree shouted excitedly, pointing at the sandy butterflies she had crafted from a mold.
“Butterflies,” Elena and I agreed at the same time.
“Let’s make a castle to fight the other castle!” Bree grabbed a handful of buckets and carried them to new, untapped sands a little further down the beach.
The butterflies set in sand came to life and found a home in my belly. “Elena.” I caught her hand as she started after Bree.
“Yes?” The sun lit her inquisitive eyes.
I brushed sand off her palms with my thumbs. “I, um…”Come on,I commanded myself sternly.This isn’t like you.When I wanted something, I asked for it. When I felt a certain way, I talked about it. Feelings didn’t scare me. They never had, least of all with Elena. “Last year, I made a mistake. I should have asked you to move in with me right away, instead of letting you go back to Montauk.”
“Riker, you didn’t make a mistake. I don’t think either of us was ready.” Her voice, usually so strong and confident, ended in the slightest of questions.
“I was. And I think you were. But that’s in the past now, and it’s not my point. The point is that I love you so much, and I never want to be separated from you again.”
“We won’t be.” Her sun-warmed, scent-rich hair flowed about my shoulders as she laid her head on my chest and wrapped her arms around me. “We live together now, remember?”
