Page 67 of Inevitable
Seeing that smile on her face when I’d agreed to go into the pool with her made the awkwardness of baring my injured leg disappear for me.
Truthfully, nobody stared at my leg like it was horrible.
People were so involved in their own lives and their own vacations that they didn’t seem to notice.
We’d had a good dinner and gone for a walk after we’d eaten.
Normally, I was a guy who was always busy doing something productive from the time I got up to the time I turned in at night.
It wasn’t like that when I was with Emma.
Everything we did together, no matter how insignificant, seemed…important.
“As little as possible,” I said as I got into bed beside her. I’d thought about booking two rooms, but we were used to sleeping together, and she’d nixed that idea the moment I’d mentioned it. I’d been relieved because I wasn’t sure I would have slept worth a damn without her with me. “Probably as much as you told her about your kidnapping.”
Emma had chosen not to discuss her kidnapping with her mother and Wren so they could enjoy their time together.
She’d simply told them that she’d been in an area without cell coverage for a while.
She sighed. “I’ll have to tell them the truth eventually. I don’t lie to either of them. My daughter is going to ask more questions about my trip to Lania when she gets home. She’s excited about being in California right now, but she’ll ask all about the trip. I’ve always been as honest as possible with Wren.”
Emma snuggled closer to me, and I automatically wrapped an arm around her to pull her as close to my body as she could get.
It was an instinctive reaction that was becoming normal for me.
For a guy who had been single his entire life, that was probably odd behavior.
Hell, I didn’t know what was normal or abnormal for me anymore.
My entire world had been upended from the moment I’d seen Emma’s picture on Wyatt’s phone.
I was resigned to the fact that I was never going to be the same man I was before that happened.
Honestly, I didn’t reallywantto be that solitary, miserable bastard anymore.
“I’m not planning on lying to her,” I informed Emma. “I’d just like to delay telling her as long as possible. Most of what I do is pretty dark. It’s not something a kid needs to think about.”
“She’s not a young child anymore, Colin,” she explained. “Even though she’s my only child, I’ve tried not to be a helicopter parent. I know I can’t shield her from everything unpleasant that happens in the world. That’s not going to prepare her for adulthood someday. I did hold off on getting her a cell phone until her thirteenth birthday, and I watch her screen time so it doesn’t rot her adolescent brain. But she’s smart and she asks a lot of questions about things that are happening in the world. I answer her as honestly as possible. It’s a delicate balance sometimes. You want your kid to be a kid, but you don’t want them to be so naïve that someone can take advantage of that. Having a gifted daughter isn’t always easy. I don’t want to let her skip another grade. I know she’ll be starting college a little earlier than most kids already. She just turned thirteen.”
I already knew my daughter’s birthday.
I couldn’t fault Emma for not wanting Wren to skip another grade.
If she did, Wren wouldn’t be much over sixteen when she started college.
Although her intelligent brain might be ready for college, it was a lot to handle emotionally for a girl that age.
Emma was already looking into letting Wren take some college courses while she was still in high school to keep my daughter from getting bored.
I knew that would have helped me if I’d had that option when I was young.
“You’re doing everything right,” I assured her.
I could tell from listening to their conversations that Emma and Wren had built a relationship that was made of trust and love.
“I’m going to fuck up,” I added, telling Emma one of my greatest fears.
Emma chuckled. “All parents screw up,” she shared. “All we can do is love our kids and hope we don’t screw them up too much. I’ve made more than my fair share of mistakes, Colin, and Wren has turned out to be a good kid anyway.”
