Page 7 of Driven Daddy

I looked down at my own fingers, which were stained with black. I knew a thing or two about smudging myself. I tended to use inks, brushes, and Microns in my work.

I refocused my attention on Carrington’s artwork. She was my middle brother Travis’s kid and had been the sole focus of all of us for a damn long time. She was only one of what felt like a dozen kids in the family now.

But she was the eldest and I sympathized with her the most.

Theo, my brother Murphy’s kid, snuck under my arm. “I want to see too.”

I ruffled his blond hair and draped my arm around him to let him in to see.

Carrington rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

Theo frowned. “Is it a cow?”

“No!” Carrington sighed. “It’s a spotted horse.”

“Obviously,” I said encouragingly.

She beamed at me. “We met horses out at the orchard last weekend with Gams and Pops.”

“Did you now?”

“Yeah, we picked apples since dad is still on a shoot in…where is he again, Gams?”

“Alaska.”

“Right. He’s doing a shoot for some clothing store.” She snorted. “My dad is not the wood chopping kinda dude.”

I laughed. She was right. My brother, the model and sometimes now actor, was not the outdoors type. He could build a damn fine bookcase though. He’d stayed at my place for a long weekend and helped me redo my office in Chelsea with huge custom shelves. It had mostly been to show off the model characters that my old publisher had commissioned for me when I’d first exploded onto the graphic novel scene.

I’d made them a damn lot of money.

When I’d found out just how much, and how little was flowing down to me—well, there had been a lot of changes back then.

But I’d made enough to buy the rights toKnights of Chaos, and I’d been one of the first indie graphic novelists to make a shit-load of money.

Dragging myself back, I realized I hadn’t told Carrington how amazing she was. “Theo, your cousin definitely got the proportions right for a horse.” I grabbed a sheet of paper from under the pile of mayhem that was the dining room table. “This is a cow.”

I did a quick sketch of a cow, emphasizing the shorter legs and more rotund body than a horse—and because it was me, he was a little demonic looking. I quickly added a few dashes of red from the pastels for the eyes.

“Okay, maybe a demon cow.”

Theo took the paper. “Wow. Demon cow. I like it!” He rushed off on his chunky five-year-old legs to show my mother.

She looked over Theo’s head and gave me a hard look.

Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have drawn a demon cow for my nephew. He’d be talking about it all day.

I just shrugged and grinned at her.

She rolled her eyes, much like Carrington, andoohedandahhedover the drawing appropriately. “Maybe we should make an angel cow to go with the demon one, yes?”

“Maybe,” I answered and sat down to draw with my niece and nephew.

Surprised that the drawing time with the kids boosted me from the stress-filled exhaustion I’d arrived with, I ended up spending an extra hour with them.

Harmony, Murphy’s youngest, woke from a nap and all of us cleaned up and had lunch.

Peanut butter and jelly with Goldfish had never tasted so good.

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