Page 124 of Pelvic Flaws

“You’ll work it out. I’ll help you. She’s gorgeous by the way.”

“Just wait until you see those eyes open, they’re beautiful. As blue as a field of Cornflowers.”

“I can’t wait, and don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”

Words I was damn glad to hear. I gave her one more kiss and then followed her out to the car.

* * *

“Darlin’, it’s amazing,” I said, looking around at Savannah’s room. “You like it honey?”

I shook Savannah’s hand in mine and looked down at her. Her shy gaze went to Katie, and with four fingers in her mouth, she nodded.

“Take your fingers out,” I said, gently pulling at her tiny hand. “Say thank you to Katie.”

Savannah’s hand left her mouth, but then wrapped around my thigh as she buried her face against the denim and muttered ‘thank you’.

“That’s okay,” Katie replied, crouching down so they were face to face. “Would you like to look in the wardrobe?” Savannah looked up at me and frowned. “Sorry, the closet. Would you like to look in the closet?”

Savannah nodded and slowly peeled herself away from me. Katie opened the closet door, allowing Savannah to look inside. The rail was full of clothes, with a rack of four pairs of shoes and two pairs of mini Converse, one pink and one yellow, underneath. Next to that were two large white plastic boxes, and I could see both were full of toys.

“For me?” Savannah asked, in a small voice.

“Yes, all for you.”

“You want to play?” I asked, wanting at least five minutes alone with Katie. The most contact we’d had was holding hands on the car journey home.

Savannah nodded and moved to the boxes.

“Here, let me get that for you honey.” I took the first box and placed it in front of Savannah’s gorgeous, white, wooden bed. “One box at a time, you know the rules.”

“Yes Daddy.” She grinned at me, and that along with her calling me daddy, made my heart swell.

She’d pretty much called me daddy from the moment I’d told her who I was. Despite the temper tantrum, she was accepting of me and giving me the name and I had to thank Lucy for that. I just wished she’d not kept to Cherry’s wishes all this time and had told me about Savannah. Apparently, according to her neighbor when I went to the house to pick up some photographs and stuff for Savannah, Lucy struggled with not telling me, but it was what Cherry had wanted, so she’d kept Savannah from me, deciding instead to put it in a letter for after her death.

“I’m just going into the living room with Katie,” I said. “You come get me if you need me or just shout. Okay?”

Savannah nodded again, barely looking at me, too interested in the dolls and Legos that Katie had got for her, as I followed Katie out.

“Gimme those lips,” I said, as soon as we were alone, pulling her to me again and kissing the damn life out of her.

“How are you darlin’?” I eventually said, once we were both breathless.

“Better now you’re back. I missed you loads.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Katie stood on tiptoes and kissed me softly. “How are you doing?”

“Scared, excited. It changes from one minute to the next to be honest.”

“Well you’re home now, and you can start getting into a routine with her. I assume that it’s all done. No courts or anything?”

“Just a formality for her name change and we’ll get visits from a social worker for a little while, just to check everything is going okay.” I sat on my couch, pulling Katie with me. “I just hope I’ve done right by her. The Henrys had a stack load of money.”

“But like you said, they wanted to send her away to school. That’s not right. And,” Katie said, snuggling against me, “it’s not like your destitute – although that credit card bill I’ve just created might make a dent.”

She grinned at me and I just had to kiss her. It was a quick peck, not nearly enough, but I’d been without her for three weeks and if I kissed her like I wanted to, well I wasn’t sure I’d stop. I now had a four-year-old to consider. That thought had me pulling away with a sigh.

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