Page 18 of Protected By Him

Laura interrupted my pretense and blurted out, “I think Daddy just said yes!” She chuckled at the look I gave her for stealing my thunder as Ella screeched with excitement.

“I'll get it,” Laura said and quickly stood to head to the kitchen before I could react. "You finish your dinner; I know my way around the kitchen."

By the time Laura returned with three bowls of ice cream, I had finished my dinner. She passed out the bowls, then settled into her seat again and took a bite.

“I thought you weren’t hungry,” I teased.

Laura looked up at me with a small smile. “There’s always room for ice cream,” she said.

Ella was excitedly devouring her ice cream, humming happily with each bite. A few minutes later, she dropped her spoon into her empty bowl with a clank. “Thank you, Laura!” she cried.

I chuckled. "Yes, thank you, Laura." I looked at her with admiration. Laura never failed to make Ella happy. She never failed to make me happy either. Having her in our house just feltright.

"No problem," she stated without meeting my eyes. "Have to earn my keep, right?"

She said this jokingly, but I didn’t find it funny in the least. I quickly responded with, “No, Laura, you do not have to earn anything. We always want you here, no matter what the circumstances are.”

Something about my tone caused Laura to look up sharply. She met my stare, and I tried without words to make her see just how much I wanted her to stay with us. The moment was broken, however, by Ella, who suddenly decided she needed to tell Laura every dinosaur fact she’d learned since they’d last seen each other, which was…a lot.

As Ella began to wind down, I stood up. "So," I said to Laura, "can we talk after her bath and bedtime? We have a lot to discuss."

"Yes," she said with a nervous swallow. "We do have a lot to talk about."

I wondered if the anxiety in her tone was due to her fear over the events of the evening, or if she suspected there was more that I wanted to talk about, that I finally wanted to broach the topic ofus.

After telling Laura that I’d leave a change of clothes for her in the guest room, I took Ella upstairs and down the little hallway to where her bedroom and bathroom were. I started the bath, then went to my own bedroom to grab something for Laura to wear. We hadn’t taken the time for her to pack a bag, and she would need something to sleep in. I took a t-shirt and pair of sweats into the guest room across the hall from my own bedroom and dropped them on the bed.

Then, I returned to the bathroom to help Ella into her bath. I chuckled when I saw she’d spent the last few minutes lining up dinosaur figurines on the edge of the tub.

“Are the dinos going to take a bath too?” I asked her.

“Not these dinos, Daddy. They don’t swim.” Then, she pulled another dinosaur I hadn’t noticed out of the water. It had a long neck and four large flippers. It looked like how I imagined the Loch Ness monster would. “This is a water dinosaur, Daddy. Do you know what it’s called?”

I shook my head, which was all Ella needed to launch into a surprisingly detailed lecture on the qualities of this particular prehistoric creature. I tried to nod and hum in the right places, but my thoughts were stuck on the beautiful woman waiting for me.

Once Ella was clean and I’d learned more about aquatic dinosaurs than I’d ever wanted to, I helped her out of the tub, dried her hair, brushed her teeth, and helped her with her pajamas. As I was getting her settled under the covers, Ella looked up at me with an intense expression on her little face.

“Daddy, is Laura sleeping here?” she asked.

“Yes. Is that okay with you?”

“Yes! We can have pancakes for breakfast. Laura makes the best pancakes,” she said.

I laughed at her declaration. Just the other day, she had said that Grandma made the best. I supposed that distinction went to whomever was available to make them at the time. Unfortunately for my little girl, pancakes were not part of my very narrow repertoire of breakfast foods.

“Tomorrow is a school day. We might not have time for pancakes. But maybe Laura will make them for you this weekend.”

Ella’s eyes grew wide with joy. “Does she live with us now?”

I paused, then asked, “Would you want Laura to live with us?”

“Yes, Daddy! I want Laura forever!” she squealed.

Dropping a kiss to Ella’s forehead, I told her, “We’ll see, Ella Bear. Maybe we can convince Laura to stay with us for a while.”I’d like to keep her forever, too, I added silently.

After reading Ella a story, I made my way back downstairs. It took me a minute to locate her, but I finally found Laura curled up on the couch with a book. It looked like she had tried to distract herself by reading but had fallen asleep. I was sure the events of the day had drained her.

I knew from experience that once she was asleep, a bomb couldn’t wake Laura. So, I scooped her into my arms and carried her upstairs to the guest room. I carefully removed her shoes and draped a blanket over her, then pressed a light kiss to her forehead just as I’d done to Ella.

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