Page 42 of Embattled Ever After

“That’s okay, I will. It’s my party anyway. I’m s’posed to pour it.”

Oh. Okay. Well, that put him in his place.

Mercy giggled at the face he made for her, like he was an English nobleman waiting for service. She loved it, so that was all that mattered.

Movement at the doorway caught his attention, and he looked up at Lora with a beleaguered expression on his puss. Rather than commiserate she tossed him a laughing kiss and faded away. Well, that stinker. He would let her escape this time, but only because she was cooking something fabulous downstairs. It could be roasted chicken. Or maybe a turkey breast.

“Chad,” Mercy’s voice took on a wheedling note. “I need more friends my age.”

This sounded like a proposal built on quicksand. “Maybe you do. How do you propose making more friends?”

He had an idea where this was going, but he wanted her to say it out loud.

“Well,” she looked at him from under her lashes. “There were a lot of kids my age at that bouncy place. Maybe we can go back there again.”

She gave him a smile that twisted his gut into a pretzel. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out how to get under his skin.

Monkey Joe’s had been one of the few places they’d gone to exclusively for Mercy. It ran along the lines of the Chucky Cheese franchise, with toys and games and food for kids. The noise and flashing lights wreaked havoc on both Lora and himself, though. Chad didn’t have the same amount of PTSD that a lot of the guys did who came back from Afghanistan, but when he’d first walked in it had definitely reminded him of being in the war. Probably not the effect the owners were hoping for.

And, after escaping her abusive marriage, Lora had lived her life so carefully for so long she had her own post-traumatic stress disorder. The further away she could be from noise and commotion the better, because she still expected her ex-husband to come around a corner to steal her daughter away. When Derek had tried to take Mercy months ago, she’d done what needed to be done to protect her daughter, but as with every other nightmare, sometimes it was hard to believe when it was finally over.

Mercy was staring at him expectantly.

“Um, we’ll ask your mom. Okay, bunny?” The classic answer he used so often.

“Bunny?!” she squealed. “I’m not a bunny!”

In spite of her words she jumped to her feet. He waved a hand at her. “Are you sure you’re not a bunny? You just jumped up like a bunny.”

Giggling, she circled the little wooden table they sat at and shoved a tiny fist into his shoulder. Chad pretended to be wounded, falling from the pint-sized chair to the floor, moaning in pain. Mercy did not live up to her name as she tackled him while he was down, tickling him in the sides at an especially sensitive spot she’d found weeks ago. It had been another wrestling session, but in her defense, she was only protecting herself from her own tickling attack.

Laughing hard, trying to get away from her sharp little fingers, Chad rolled across the room, being impaled by Mega-bloks in his back. He finally cried uncle and Mercy fell across him, her hands in the air in victory. “You’re going to give me a complex, little girl.”

“What’s a complex?” she asked.

Chad rolled his eyes, wondering how he got himself into these situations. “It’s when you make somebody worry about something.”

She blinked and her pretty green eyes turned sad. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to have an ?omplex. I love you.”

Chad stilled, all of the events swirling through the past nine months slowed to focus on this one second. “I love you too, bunny. Bunches. Think your mom has dinner ready yet? Maybe we should go down and cheer her on, you know, to make her cook faster.”

Once again, Mercy’s mood lightened. “Yes, let’s do that.”

Bouncing to her feet she darted for the door.

Chad followed her more slowly, stretching the spot that had gone over the speed bump. He kicked the offending blocks toward the toy box, but he didn’t bother putting them away. Seemed like Mercy couldn’t keep a clean room. Ever. As soon as they cleaned everything up, she had twenty new things on the floor.

Wandering down the hallway, he arrived in time to see Lora remove a casserole dish from the oven. Mercy was setting glasses out on the table, so Chad reached for the plates in the upper cupboard. “Mercy, can you get the silverware?”

She nodded, heading to the drawer. On his way to the table, Chad leaned down to press a kiss to the nape of Lora’s neck. With a quick smile she leaned up to give him a peck.

Out of the ashes of the past months, Lora had emerged as an incredible woman. She was a survivor, and she would teach her daughter to be as strong as she was. Chad felt so very grateful to be a part of her life. He got to see the process happen up close. And hopefully he could be a positive influence to help Mercy become a woman her mother could be proud of.

Rather than turning the day to day running of Malone Investments over to a business manager, she had hired a manager willing to teach her to take the reins herself. It was slow going, because finance had never been a passion, but she was determined to secure her daughter’s future.

Their lives had changed drastically in recent months. He’d moved into her house after everything had gone down, but Chad had quickly realized that Lora needed a change. Even after Derek was gone, he could tell the memories of what he’d done to her in the house haunted her. They’d changed everything in her bedroom, even down to the carpet, but she still felt the echoes of the attack. That’s when they started looking for houses.

Then she’d gotten a letter from the lawyers handling the Malone estate.

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