Caleb's Blessing Read online

  I won’t give her saint status, but she’s been keeping her shit to herself, which is more than enough for me. Amanda has new female friends now and she doesn’t have much to do with her sister in law and I’m not gonna force her to, she’s had enough forced on her in this lifetime, she gets to do whatever the fuck she wants from here on out and I back her one hundred percent to make sure she does.

  The ex recovered, but his bones didn’t mend so well and he’s a bit lopsided, or so I hear. Last I heard he was the town drunk, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

  Her dad had been out this year for the first time, because even though she’d been ready to forgive and forget, I wasn’t. I can’t imagine any man leaving his daughter to that shit. Some motherfucker put hands on my little girl he’s done. The boys were already digging holes around the place for her teenage years, true story.

  Speaking of Caleigh, it turns out Diane can’t have kids, mom and Amanda thinks this is part of her problem I don’t know. But she loves the fuck outta my kid.

  She lights up when she sees her and it’s the same for Caleigh, she loves her aunty Diane, the two of them ate thick as thieves, and the fucked up thing is, Amanda doesn’t deal with Diane like that, but she has no problem letting her have as much time as she wants with her niece.

  I guess that’ a female thing, I was dead sat against it in the beginning, then again I was dead set against anyone taking my kid out of my sight or spending more time with her than I did.

  But it didn’t matter what she was doing or who with, as soon as she saw her daddy they were forgotten. I love that shit.

  I walked into her room where she already had everything set up. “The fuck are you doing here?” I growled under my breath at Mikey who was sitting in one of the little chairs that looked like it would break every time one of us sat in them.

  “It’s Thursday idiot.”

  “The fuck does that mean?” He had the nerve to roll his eyes at me like I was stupid.

  “Today is glamour day and you don’t know how to do it.”

  “And you do? Get out.” fucker, first the mother and now my kid, filch. Though he had his own girl these days and was getting ready to settle down. I wish he’d hurry the fuck up and get his own kids.

  I couldn’t kick his ass the way I wanted because my little buttercup came back to the table with her loot.

  Her aunty Diane had got her the biggest makeup kit in the universe or some shit with every color known to man, which she likes practicing on us guys, especially now that her mom is big as Brutus and can’t sit still for two seconds.

  “Daddy sit.” I did as I was told and waited patiently while she put gold gook on the idiot’s eye. Now we have a sworn rule that nothing that goes on in these little sessions leaves this room, but since he was encroaching on my time I figured I’d fix his ass.

  “Boss what’re you doing?” I snapped a few pics with my phone and smirked at him.

  The two of us spent the next half hour entertaining her and being entertained by her because my kid is a ham.

  When her mother came in and said it was naptime and I knew world war eight was about to start, I headed her off with promises of ice cream after supper, which seemed to suffice.

  As usual if I was at home at naptime, I was the one to put her to bed and lay with her until she fell asleep on my chest, it was my favorite part of the day, except for the time I spent with my wife.

  Sometimes like now, I felt the whole of it well up inside me and it’s almost too much. The love I had for these two, and now the little one that she was carrying.

  “Is she asleep yet?” I looked down at my daughter as her mom stood in the doorway watching us.

  “Yeah she’s out.” I eased her off my chest and kissed her forehead before leaving the bed and the room.

  As soon as I reached my wife my mouth was on hers and my hand covered the hard mound of her stomach where my son was doing his swimming lessons.

  “I need you.” I hustled her down the hall to our room and closed the door.