Page 9 of Follow My Heart

But I wanted to be a more involved parent, and I wanted to teach my daughter life skills; that included how to ride a bike.

We’d made it a few houses with Faith starting and stopping, tipping to the side more times than I could count before declaring the whole thing boring. Why learn how to ride a bike when every kid these days had a cell phone, and you could just text them or send them a silly video?

That was a dig at me because I wouldn’t allow her to get a phone. That was the one thing I’d insisted on with Stacy. I used my job as the reason. She was too young to be exposed to social media, and I didn’t want her playing on a phone instead of outside.

Faith was free to enjoy time with me. Too bad she didn’t seem all that interested.

Faith wobbled forward a few more feet, then tipped to the side for what seemed like the hundredth time. She shot me a look over her shoulder. “Are we done now?”

“I wanted to make it to that tree.” I pointed to one in the distance. The thing was, I wanted to go for a walk with Faith, but I was afraid she’d say no. And since I’d announced we were going to learn how to ride a bike, it seemed like the perfect excuse to get her out of the house and spending time with me. If this didn’t work, I was going to have to look into getting a dog I wouldn’t be around enough to care for. This parenting thing was hard.

“Good evening, Ryder,” said the older gentleman who lived a few houses down the street from me. I usually saw him out on my morning runs. He was always friendly and seemed delighted that I had a daughter. He’d told me that he missed his granddaughters when her mother moved them to Florida years ago.

“George. Good to see you.”

There was a sharp gasp from the woman who was walking next to him in that same yellow shirt and white shorts I'd seen her in earlier. Except now I felt a little freer to check out her long legs.

George beamed. “This is my granddaughter, Violet. The one I told you about.”

I couldn’t help the grin that spread over my face when Violet blanched. “You talked about me to Ryder?”

George looked from Violet to me. “You two know each other?”

“We went to school together,” Violet said.

I winked at Violet, and her cheeks flushed. “We were close. This is the girl I married in second grade.”

Instead of being pissed, George chuckled. “You married my granddaughter?”

I nodded as if we were sharing a secret. “That’s right.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “Kids can’t get married.”

Too late I forgot my daughter was watching this interaction. “It was just for fun. I’m sure you play pretend with your friends.”

Faith looked away. “I’m twelve, Dad.”

Like I could forget. She felt more like a teenager every day. She tended to be short with me, as if she was constantly irritated with everything I said and did. And I didn’t think it was solely because of the divorce. I’d damaged our relationship by not spending enough time with her, but I intended to fix that. If it wasn’t too late.

“I enjoyed playing pretend with my girlfriends at your age. We’d act out scenes in movies, dress up in makeup and costumes. It was fun,” Violet said, and I shot her a grateful look.

“Are you out for your evening walk? “I asked George. I was trained to watch people, and their habits, and it was no different when I moved here. I couldn’t turn off my training even if I wanted to.

“Violet brought me dinner. Thought I’d take her with me.”

“That’s nice of you,” I said to Violet, not surprised she was the type of woman who made time for her family. I wonder why I hadn’t seen that in Stacy before we got serious.

Violet looped her hand through George’s arm, gazing up at him. “Now that I moved home, I can see Grandpa more often.”

George patted her hand and said proudly. “Violet moved home to open an ice-cream shop.”

“I’ve had the pleasure of tasting her ice cream. It’s fantastic.”

Violet’s gaze swung to me. “You liked it?”

It seemed to matter more to her than she cared to admit.

“I had to check out how you incorporated my sister’s pie into ice cream. It’s good.”

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