Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 61723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
She’s been here, obviously.
A dozen times over the last three months.
Dinner. Movie nights. Falling asleep with Quinn on the couch while I carried them both to bed, one after the other, because apparently this is my life now and I wouldn’t change a damn thing.
But today feels different. Today she’s seeing it with purpose. Not just as a place I live.
As something I’m showing her. As something I’m asking her to imagine with me. Her gaze moves across the living room, the wide kitchen, the hall that leads toward the spare bedrooms.
One of those rooms already has a little bed in it. Yellow comforter. Bookshelf. A basket of stuffed animals Looney claimed was “too many damn rabbits” when he helped me haul it in.
Lucy notices the half-open door and glances at me. “Tucker.”
“Later,” I counter hoping she can be patient with me.
Her eyes widen slightly. But she doesn’t push. That trust again.
We step out through the back door and onto the deck.
Quinn beats us by three full seconds. Then she freezes. The world goes quiet around her.
And I know the exact second she sees it. The swings. The slide. The fort. The sandbox.
All of it.
Her mouth falls open.
“Mama.”
Lucy stops beside me. Looks where Quinn is looking. And doesn’t say anything at all. For one breath. Then two. Then Quinn screams. Not in fear. In joy. The kind so complete it makes my throat tighten.
She tears across the yard so fast her rabbit nearly goes airborne, hitting the swing first, then the ladder, then the slide, then circling back to the little steering wheel on the fort platform like she physically cannot decide what to love first.
Lucy just stands there. Hands at her mouth.
Eyes shining with unshed tears. I shove both my hands into my pockets because suddenly I don’t know what to do with them.
Finally she turns toward me. “You built this?”
“Yeah.”
“For Quinn.”
“Yeah.” I wait. Because this part matters. Not the wood and bolts and hours in the sun. What it means. I want it to settle in deep.
Lucy looks back at Quinn, who is now trying to drag the rabbit up the climbing wall and narrating a dramatic rescue mission to absolutely no one.
Then Lucy looks at me again. And there are tears spilling from her eyes now.
Not the bad kind. Not the broken kind.
The kind that come when something is too good and too real and your heart didn’t brace right because you never expected it.
“No one has ever,” She swallows. “No one has ever done something like this for her.”
The words hit deep. “She should have this,” I say simply.
Lucy nods once. Her mouth trembles. Then she laughs softly, wiping at her eyes before the tears can fully fall off her chin. “You’re impossible.”
“Been told that before.”
She steps closer. Close enough that I can smell her shampoo, feel the warmth of her through my shirt. “You built my little girl a playground.”
I look over her shoulder at Quinn.
“Our little wild thing needed somewhere to burn energy.”
The phrase leaves my mouth before I think about it.
Our.
Lucy hears it. Of course she does. Her eyes catch mine. And something shifts there. Deepens. We both feel it. I don’t take it back. I’m done taking back truths. Quinn comes racing back then, cheeks pink, eyes huge.
“Mama! There’s a driving part! And a slide! And sand!”
“I see that, baby.”
“Can we stay forever?”
The question lands in the center of my chest like a bell. Lucy laughs softly, brushing Quinn’s hair back from her face.
“I think that might be a little sudden.”
Quinn looks at me. Not Lucy.
Me.
And there’s so much trust in that little face that it nearly drops me to my knees.
“Can we come a lot?” she asks. “I mean I don’t want to sleep on your porch Mellow, but I like the bed inside.”
I crouch in front of her. “I feel pretty good we can make arrangements.”
She grins so hard she almost folds in half, then races back to the slide before either of us can say another word.
Lucy watches her go. Then she looks at me slowly. And I know.
Now.
Before my courage can develop a self-preservation instinct. I reach into my pocket. Her breath catches immediately when she sees the small velvet box. I don’t get down on one knee right away. Not because I don’t want to.
Because first I need her to hear this standing up. Eye to eye. Woman to man. Truth to truth.
She goes very still. “Tucker.”
I open the box. The ring is simple and strong. Gold band, oval diamond, nothing flashy. It felt like her the second I saw it—clear, steady, beautiful without trying too hard.
Her eyes fill again. And this time I’m the one taking a breath before I speak.
“I bought this house because I liked the space,” I begin. “Thought it fit the kind of life I had then. Quiet. Easy to leave. Easy to keep to myself.”