Page 16 of Defending Casey

He wanted to see where they were going. Help Nora get her things.

He wanted to do something more than stand there with Casey and feel like he was as useful as a one-legged man at an ass kicking contest.

Hale knew he could just turn around and walk away. He’d come over to make things better not dig himself a grave.

Reaching up his hand, Hale rubbed his palm against the close-cut hairs at the back of his head. Taking a breath, he looked up at Casey and found her watching him closely.

Editing down his thoughts, he managed to ask a simple question. “So Brian helps you with Nora?”

She smiled back at him. “Yeah. He’s good with her, but it’s not just with Nora. He helped us expand the house when she needed a room to herself.” Casey gestured at the far side of the house. “He helped us build on where the mudroom was. We share the half-bath which is now between our rooms and my dad braves the waves when she takes her bath.”

Hale opened his mouth to ask her another question, but Nora appeared on the porch with her backpack in her hand. She stood there, the tips of her half-boots on the edge of the step as she shrugged on her backpack. “Daddy? Are you ready?”

It took him half a second to process the question. Holding out his arms he gave Nora a big grin. “Ready!”

Nora took a leap from the top step, and he caught her with ease.

She wrapped her arms and legs around him like a koala bear and laughed at the sky.

Hale spun her around a time or two but stopped there. The last thing he wanted to do was make her dizzy before school. Lowering her down so he could look into her face, Hale was shocked once again at the resemblance she had to her mother.

Nora’s face held the sweet, youthful innocence that Hale couldn’t even remember from his youth, and he made a decision at that very moment that he’d walk through fire before he took that away from her.

“Hey, beautiful girl.” She giggled and he had to laugh along with her. “You ready for school?”

She nodded her head and he saw her pigtails bobbing around her ears. He’d missed so much.

“Can you take me to school tomorrow?” The hopeful look in her eyes slayed him.

“Yeah. Absolutely.” He turned to look at Casey and felt his heart rise up in his throat. “That is if it’s okay with your mom.”

He knew he was putting Casey on the spot, but at that moment the one thing he wanted more than anything else was to take his daughter to school.

The thought, the reality of it, hit him like a sucker punch to his gut.

“Sure,” Casey agreed and then had to speak over their daughter’s cheers of joy, “we just have to work out the car seat issue, but-”

“Yay!”

Nora gave him a big smacking kiss and wriggled out of his arms before turning around. “Come on, Uncle Brian. We’re gonna be late!”

Hale managed to smile and wave at his daughter as Brian walked her to his truck and helped her up into the back seat in the extended cab. He listened in for the snap of the seatbelt and lifted a hand to wave at Nora as the truck pulled out and onto the road.

He didn’t move and he didn’t even breathe until the truck disappeared down the road and out of sight.

He heard Casey’s voice as clear as a bell when she spoke. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”

Hale turned to look at her, again taken with her womanly beauty. “What is?”

“How much you love her already.” Her expression softened to a sigh. “The first time I held her in my arms I was sure of two very simple things. One: they lied about forgetting the pain. Two: I was head over heels in love with her in just a second.”

His head was filled with questions but the one that tumbled out of his mouth was one he wanted to pull back in. “You didn’t love her before then?”

Hale almost looked up at the sky for the cloud that cast a shadow across her face.

“I’m sorry, Case. I shouldn’t have said-”

“No.” She lifted her arms and crossed them over her body as if the air around her had suddenly gone cold. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions for me. I can answer that one to start.” She took a step away from him and then looked back, tilting her head toward the stairs.

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