Page 3 of Mine To Keep (Southern Wedding)

“He bought a hockey team.” I throw my hands up. “He’s never even been on skates.”

“That was because…” My father stops talking to hold up his finger. “There was a good reason for that.”

“There is no good reason for that. Not one good reason for it besides trying to strong-arm Sofia’s husband.” I mention my cousin and her new husband. I actually got the apartment from his cousin’s best friend, Levi.

“I don’t want to fight with you on your last day here,” my father says. “Now let’s get going since you have a flight to catch.” He turns to walk into the barn. “Unless you want to borrow the jet, or we can drive you there.”

“Quinn,” my mother grumbles between clenched teeth, “at this point, she’s not going to come home, ever.”

My father gasps, putting a hand to his heart. “She would never.”

I smirk at him. “Never say never, Dad.” I tilt my head to the side. “Never say never.” I walk past him toward the stable that holds my horse, never thinking those words would come back to haunt me.

two

Caine

“Chop-chop,” I prod as I walk out of the house with Meadow behind me. I wait for her to step out of the doorway before I shut it behind us. She is already down two steps when I join her, holding out my hand for her to take as we make our way toward the BMW SUV.

“Chop-chop, Daddy,” she echoes, looking up at me. Her pigtails are already starting to fall, one lopsided. One hand on the railing, the other is in mine until we get to the bottom of the steps, where she lets go of my hand. “Choppy-choppy.” She claps her hands, mimicking how I usually do chop-chop when we need to run out of the house. I shake my head at her as I walk to the SUV and open the back door. I wait to see if she wants me to lift her to put her in or if she’ll do it herself. She grabs my hand before stepping up into the car and getting into her car seat. I toss her little pink backpack onto the seat next to her before I buckle her in. “Chop-chop,” she repeats, and I smile at her, looking into her blue eyes that are exactly like mine. “Daddy.”

“Chop-chop, baby girl.” I kiss her nose before closing the door and getting into the front seat. I turn on the car and back out of the driveway and head toward her daycare.

“Daddy,” Meadow calls me, “can we listen to Encanto?”

I inwardly groan at this request. “You want me to put on Encanto?”

“‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno,’” she coos in her sweet voice while she looks out the window.

“Great,” I say as I touch the screen in the middle of the console, pulling up Spotify and clicking Meadow’s playlist. In a matter of seconds, the music fills the car. It feels like fingernails down the chalkboard when the song starts to sing about Bruno. I pull into the daycare parking lot, putting the car in park, and shutting it off so the music will stop. I swear my brain sighs with relief when it happens. I was happy we were over the “Baby Shark” thing the first couple of times, but now I’m stuck on Bruno.

I open the driver’s door before opening the back door and unbuckling her seat belt and grabbing her backpack. “Do you want to take your backpack in, or do you want me to carry it?”

I always ask her because there is nothing quite like a little tantrum of her wanting to carry in the bag and then a full-blown tear fest, all this after I carried the bag into the daycare. She turned four, and her independence came crashing into her. She had to try to do everything herself. And I mean everything, from picking her clothes to brushing her own hair. It was a learning curve for me more than anything.

“Me,” she states as I pick her up and place her on the ground and hand her the backpack.

“Do you want me to help you?” I ask her. Another thing I have to do because, again, no one needs to go through the tears on a Monday morning.

“I can do it,” she says the four words I hear all day long. The words literally tattooed on my brain. I stand here for a second, watching her grab the bag from me and slipping her arm through one loop before trying to get the second one in.

I give her a second to figure it out before I speak up, hoping to speed up the process, and ask her, “Can I help you?” Thankfully she nods her head, giving me the go-ahead, so I pull it up for her. “There you go.”

She holds out her hand for me to grab as we walk into the daycare. I put in the code for the door before opening it and hold it open for her to walk through. “Dad, tonight can we have pasta?” she asks me as we walk down the carpeted hallway. Wooden cubbies line the right side of the wall with hooks under them, some with jackets already hanging, and a long wooden bench. We pass two classrooms before Meadow stops by her hook. “Can we have the pasta with the chicken and the cheese?” She slips the backpack off her shoulders, and it lands on my foot.

“Sure,” I agree, picking her bag up and hanging it on her hook with her name under it. “Maybe we can go for a walk to the park after dinner,” I tell her, and she jumps up and down.

“Yeah, I can do the monkey bars,” she announces, walking toward the blue classroom door. The bottom half of the door is closed, with a picture of a dragonfly on it, while the top half of the door is open.

“Good morning, Meadow,” Melanie, her educator, greets her as she opens the door. “How are you this morning?”

“Good,” Meadow answers as I squat down next to her.

“Have a good day, baby,” I say softly, putting my hands on her hips.

“I’m not a baby,” she reminds me. “I’m four.”

“How could I ever forget?” I reply as she comes over and kisses my lips. “Have a great day, big girl.”

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